Not with Our Parents

Not with Our Parents
Deuteronomy 5: 1-15

This week I read an e-mail from a student now doing graduate work elsewhere: “I quit my job on Monday as I was averaging four hours of sleep a night and came down with two colds in the first two weeks of school. Best decision of the year.” Last week in an introductory session about seminary life for our own new students, someone asked for advice about staying in good shape, in a broader sense than the physical. My answer was “Have a day off.” For financial reasons, it’s hard for students not to work 24/7, but then they get overtired, ill, and depressed. Admittedly, many others in the context of Western life are in the same position. I am not strict about keeping a twenty-four-hour Sabbath, but I am in a position to close the computer Saturday afternoon and go out to dinner and listen to some music, then give Sunday morning to church, then go to the beach for lunch and a nap. I am more strict about giving the beginning part of each day to a time consciously in God’s presence and about stopping work at dinner time (admittedly because that is when my brain switches off) unless I have an evening class...