Conscious Dependence

A couple of months ago, I quit caffeine.  A conversation first got me thinking about it, and I decided give it a try because it might help with a minor health issue.  I'd only been having 2-3 teas a day, but the headaches when reducing it were so bad that I decided just to cut it all out, rather than prolong the pain.

I see now that I used to need tea, or rather, the deep 'ahhh' that a good cuppa induced.  Eight weeks on, and especially after a night shift, my body would still very happily welcome a strong and milky, fully caffeinated builders' brew!  If we're honest, it's one of the acceptable addictions in our culture.  In medical terms, to be looking for the next fix, and to experience withdrawal symptoms when it doesn't come, indicates (drug) dependence.

There's something else about those weeks in which I work night duty: whilst the upheaval makes me need extra sleep, I find it much more difficult to take a day of rest.  Having studied hard to make the most of the days leading up to the night shift, it's somehow then tempting to fill the remainder of the week with a mixture of lethargic lounging and scrabbling to do useful things.

Since deciding a few years ago to be more disciplined about taking a weekly rest day, in some ways life's workload is made more intense on other days.  Previously, I would stat washing or batch cooking on my husband's day off, whilst he was around to supervise our young children.  This made sense in terms of efficiency and productivity, but it meant that I rarely really stopped (even to the extent that it's possible to with toddlers around!)

It's easy to imagine that a rest day is God's way of rejuvenating us so that we can be more productive overall.  Whilst that might be a side-effect, theologically it's not what sabbath practice is about.  In Genesis we read about the 'Who' of creation (it's not really about the 'how'): a Creator who rests on the seventh day.  Since God doesn't get tired or weary (Isaiah 40:28), this rest can be seen not as the necessary consequence of God's creative work, but as its culmination and celebration—its intended direction.

Unlike God, we are limited, exhaustible, needing sleep and recuperation.  We can, though, get pretty good at persevering.  Technology increases our capacity, enabling us to exceed human strength or endurance.  Contemporary Western culture demands that we keep up, stay connected, make use of our time.  A sense of Christian responsibility to be busily engaged can also play a part, perhaps particularly for those whose work overlaps with others' recreation.  A Christian leader recently said he'd told his accountability group—as a confession, not as a boast—that he hadn't taken a day off in 3 weeks.

In contrast to the ideals of modern capitalism, Sabbath rest, for us creatures, is actually about being unproductive.  We're not supposed to keep going, prove ourselves capable, and live as though our security and provision depends on it.  In being invited to participate in the rest and celebration of the all-sufficient Creator, our creaturely part is simply to receive.  This, however, requires a more active, intentional cooperation than we might think.

A sense of self-sufficiency, along with the capitalist hamster wheel that to some extent each of us runs on, dulls our awareness of utter need for God, who then inadvertently becomes a means to our own ends.  Piety, religious practice, church commitment, or whatever phrase you prefer, can become a way of making us better citizens—better producers and consumers, better disciples of Western capitalism—with a strong work ethic based partly on the misguided mantra that 'God helps those who help themselves.'

If we are offended by this idea, maybe that's a good thing.  To be unruffled by it is probably worse!  Yes, we need to be in the habit of worshipping and learning of God, both personally and together with others, but to what extent might this become part of our work?  Intentionally practising sabbath-rest is supposed to challenge the human illusion of mastery.  It's a commitment to conscious dependence, not on a drug that keeps us going, but upon our all-sufficient Creator who made us with an inherent need to stop.⬦

(I owe some of the ideas in this post to works by James K. A. Smith, Jűrgen Moltmann, and Josef Pieper.  This doesn't mean I would endorse everything they say.)

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