Rest. Despite the unrest that fills the atmosphere, this is where I landed Wednesday night. After toiling for an hour or so with two different ideas, the stillness of an early-June twilight on my good friend’s porch demanded my attention and found its way onto the page. A few drafts later, and with my wife’s approval, here is my prophetic call to sabbath. For those of the Jewish faith, the sabbath plays a central role in their lives and identity. According to BibleStudyTools.com, “The origin of the Hebrew sabbat … is uncertain, but it seems to have derived from the verb sabat, meaning to stop, to cease, or to keep.” Regardless of the times, the soul needs its sabbaths: times to stop, to cease, and rest. Only by taking time to sabat will we ever be ready to act and be a light in the darkness.
Bird Song Sabbath – Vincent H. Anastasi
Why disturb the thrilling stillness
of early-June twilight
when skies mellow late
and birds profess vespers
to willing ears
not dulled by noise
nor rushed by time
missing each distinct hallelujah
echoed by tree frog choirs.
Drill down into the deepening quiet
until the treble intonation
of the mosquito rings
the ossicles in your ear
and even the scratch of this pen
finds voice.
You were made for these sabbaths,
the deep breath preceding action
essential to being,
extraordinary not in rarity
but in our willful negligence,
our pandemonic distractedness,
our manic chasing the whirlwind
more enamored by our swirling dust
than cardinal confessions,
robin rejoicings,
or a house finch’s hope
on a late-spring evening.
the deepening ground 