Pastor’s Pen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . …… . . . . . . . . . Pastor David Wold

        The Fifty Days of Easter on the Church’s liturgical calendar ends on June 8, Pentecost Sunday, and the celebration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  This year at PLC we have a special treat.  MaryAnn McKibben Dana, author of “Sabbath in the Suburbs” will be with us for Saturday and Sunday, and a chance to explore with her the gift of Sabbath.

        When we think of Sabbath as commandment only, it has a tendency to be relegated to something we do, or another religious box to be checked off. Even when viewed as gift Sabbath may not ignite much enthusiasm. We’ve all received gifts we didn’t appreciate or fell short of our expectations.  Consider the young boy told to write a note of thanks for a birthday gift. He wrote: “Dear Aunt Mable, Thanks for the gift. I’ve always wanted a set of encyclopedias, but not much.”

        Sabbath, in our harried and over-scheduled lives, may sound good as time off to do little or nothing, but as such is largely out of reach for most of us. But what if God, ever gracious and full of loving surprises, had much more packed into that gift than we may have yet discovered?  What if all these years of thinking Sabbath was just a period of time in the weekend to avoid doing stuff, especially fun stuff, and actually was much more?

        What if Sabbath is an invitation into the heart of God and to the wonderful complexity of God’s family and creation?  Then the gift of Sabbath could be the further opening up of life, a tuning to rhythms we haven’t heard clearly, a celebration of relationships we thought we already knew or attainment of ones we thought impossible?

So this weekend together, June 7-8, could be a lovely gift of grace and discovery, and not just one more thing to do. Come and see. Blessings await.