Description
Book SynopsisThe third in Cowley’s Cloister Book series, Sabbath Keeping is a collection of ten meditations, each exploring a different aspect of keeping the sabbath and ending with a prayer. Since it is a difficult art in a society that does not value rest, Schaper encourages small acts of sabbath keeping that initially focus on physical and mental renewal but soon broaden to questions of justice and power. She begins with a chapter called “What is Sabbath?” and goes to the Bible for definitions, from the ordinances surrounding sabbath in the Hebrew Bible to the gospel stories about the Sabbath. Other meditations concern sabbath and music, sabbath and the body, prayer, focusing and decluttering, sabbath and memory, sabbath as the relinquishing of power, and sabbath as an act of resistance.
Trade Review'We are desperate for rest in a culture that seems to reward only effort. We understand ourselves as overworked, but in a way we are proud of our exhaustion and our failure to honor the Sabbath.’ “These words by Donna Schaper in her new book Sabbath Keeping make a good beginning, for we are indeed deeply confused about time, bound as we are by a misguided allegiance to schedules and work that drives us beyond even fatigue to something worse, the loss of our very souls. “Schaper’s volume focuses on the Sabbath’s unique role in sanctifying time. . . . Schaper also reminds us that the third commandment is an invitation to joy. Indeed, . . . there is always an expectation of joy lurking behind time—time seen as a gift from God, as a part of God’s mysterious grace -- Mark Harshman * Christianity and The Arts *
