Viewing entries tagged
guilt

sabbath musings

I can't help but feel guilty on my day off. This morning, I got up around 6:30am, ate breakfast and...wait for it...went back to bed for 2 1/2 hours. Then read things on the internets, read some comics, did a few dishes, made a dinner reservation, ate lunch, read Loving Husband's Harper's magazine. It's been a good, quiet morning, precisely what a day off should be. And yet I feel guilty.

I should be ironing LH's work shirts for next week or spending quality time with the sewing machine and worship banners or cleaning the bathrooms or burying the compost or subjecting the basement to CleanFest 08. And here I sit updating the blog I have ignored for weeks.

At the end of the day, I'll no doubt cry, "I haven't done enough" and shake my fist dramatically at the ceiling. But I'm trying to let that go. Our culture is so fast-paced and pushy, we can't help but feel guilty or twitchy when not accomplishing something. Qoheleth would remind us that fast or slow, there is nothing new under the sun and everything we do is like chasing after the wind. Some might find that depressing, but I find it calming. Things fall apart, it says. Some things remain. You have no control and, far from filling me with fear, that thought gives me permission to let go.