July 26, 2003 5:34 P.M.

And On the Seventh Day…

If you have been reading this journal for any length of time, I am sure you have gotten the picture, that I am a little uncomfortable in my new (a year now) “season” of retirement. I am a nutty kind of person who seems to need “permission” to do certain things. Of course, my employer “gave me permission” to retire. (He didn’t give me permission NOT to.) But that is the problem. It was not of my own volition. I have had difficulty “giving myself permission”.

Crazy? I know.

But it has felt like I am playing hooky and without a purpose. I am better with it now than in the initial months…but I’m still searching for structure and some “fruit of retirement.”

That is not all bad, but I feel like I am not centered. I guess you have also figured out by now, that I have a very analytical and questioning mind, which has at times gotten me into trouble, but in other ways has allowed me to have some answers to share with other people. Thus the “homespun philosopher.”

Just this week, I am listening to some tapes by a Jewish Theologian teaching the “Torah”. I think it was what I needed to hear, in order to give myself permission for this “resting and reflecting” part of my life. (That does NOT mean inactivity…but it all centers around the ‘producing’ factor.) Read this with me and see if you get the picture. In his teaching of Genesis 2:2:

…God “rested” or “ceased”… : Shabbat

“What did He cease from? Work which produced something. The purpose of life is not just to work. Working is important. But NOT working is just as important. This means to cease from work which produces. On the Sabbath, Jews were prohibited from doing work which “produces something”. It is to make sure that you realize that working to produce something, is not all we are put here to do. Six sevenths of the time, we are to work to produce. One seventh of the time, we are here not to produce, but merely to live. To live and ask, “What were the other six days about?” If you work all seven days, how do you know what you have produced? How can you sit back and ask “what all have I accomplished?” You never have the time to enjoy the fruit of what you have labored for on the other six days. It is critical. It is part of creation, to sit back and ask, “What am I alive for”; “What did I produce all these things for?”. If you keep working, you are not free, because the person who has to work seven days is a slave, not because he does not get paid, but because he cannot stop.”

God produced for six days, and then He stopped to reflect on what had been accomplished. If God did this, ….who am I?

I realize there are other very important teachings regarding the “Sabbath Rest”.

But this one is what I needed to hear for where I am in life. Now I can give myself permission to embrace this “season”, and to know that it is a God ordained time for the perusal and enjoyment of the previous “six days”. I think that is part of what writing this journal is, for me.

So for those of you who are at this stage of life…this is for you too. And for you youngsters,…just keep it in mind.

God willing, - you will be here someday.

Now I have to go and think about all this…………

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