The Sabbath… Abraham Heschel calls it ‘God’s architecture in time’. The Sabbath creates the regular rhythm of a space in-between. This is the context where local, individual moments touch eternity. This is truth local & asymmetrical brought into proximity with truth unchanging & persistent. The habit of regularly entering into that space is the discipline of perspective. It a journey towards difference and holy otherness where the revealed and the mysterious are held in tension. Derrida says, “there is a duty to translate and not to translate, to understand, to enter into relation with another but at the same time preserve the otherness of the other”.
It’s interesting… truth local, pitted and asymmetrical is often overwhelmed by a seemingly wanton, unpredictable vortex of violence and dislocation. It is that sometimes intensified aspect of chaos where there is a mischief and a vandalism in its milder forms and terror & death at its most determined.
Tragedy is potential dissipated, opportunity lost, beauty erased in a vacuum untouched by meaning.
The result of truth tinged with violence, overwhelmed with chaos is theodicy. The affective response to the harshness of local truth is, “Where is God ?” or the cry of Psalm 22, “I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint, my heart is like wax, it has melted within my breast… my God, my God, why have you forsaken me ?”
The Sabbath reminds us that not all truth is local. For the sensitive ones who create the space, it is the possibility of continuing revelation. It is the reminder of the close proximity of God’s glorious presence in the fabric of time. The Glory of God lightly touches the world and for those who engage in the holy habit of attending, of offering hospitality to the presence of God, this translates truth local & unrelenting into glorious possibility & a future punctuated with hope.
Every instant is an act of creation. There is a pilgrim journey, a constant and continuous movement that is made possible by the Sabbath – a journey towards otherness and difference away from our man made structures. Those who take this journey find day after day they are sustained, inspired and led by a God who is undiminished by truth local, pitted and unpredictable. This is the God whose glory is most easily perceived in the chaos.
