Exodus, Chapter 20 – “Remember the Sabbath day—keep it holy. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God! You shall not do any work, either you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, your work animal, or the resident alien within your gates. For six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the LORD has blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.” 
When I was growing up, The Lord’s Day was easier to observe. We went to church, had Sunday dinner together, and most of the stores were closed. The week’s activities didn’t stop, but they slowed down. By the time I reached college in 1970, many of the blue laws banning liquor sales had lifted, more stores and restaurants were open, and families had more cars. Life started to speed up.
Over the next decades, the pace of life quickened. Weekends often became a period of intense activity. I used the time to catch up on email, home projects, volunteer work, socializing and travel, to the point that I was often relieved to get back to work on Monday. Fierce competition in the marketplace taught me to practice a ruthless time management—make every minute count to catch up on work or move a project forward. Letting available time go without doing anything “productive” was inefficient, even lazy. Immediate access via mobile devices and social media brought its own set of demands and obligations.
With the advent of email, the web, cell phones, texting, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Amazon, and online shopping, life has sped up to the point that there isn’t any break from work or social activity. This level of frenetic activity finally becomes soul-numbing. There is no escaping it except to stop, unplug and disconnect.
After many years of being afraid to take the step, I decided to observe The Lord’s Day. It’s hard to stop even though I want to change. It’s scary for me to let the day unfold without planned activities. How will being in the present moment affect my focus? How will my relationship with myself and with God change?
What would happen, if several million other Christians made the same decision to observe The Lord’s Day? If we stopped driving, buying, and turned off our computers on Sunday? What effect would that have on energy consumption? Would it be a Sabbath for the environment?
Like Lent, the Sabbath offers the opportunity to move towards renewing and deepening our faith rather than just “giving up” some treats or behaviors as a way of observance. Fr. James Kurzynski, a blogger at Sacred Space Astronomy and a priest of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin offers a valuable suggestion:
“As I have been prayerfully considering how best to keep holy the Sabbath, I’m feeling moved to use my day off as an opportunity to explore my love of music and astronomy. As I shared with you in previous posts, I had a wonderful vacation in Phoenix, Arizona after the Faith and Astronomy Workshop. After hiking up Superstition Mountain and recording music in a beautiful bowl-shaped canyon, I am now inspired to relive this experience as part of my Sabbath rest. To do this, I want to combine my love for the outdoors, music and astronomy into a creative endeavor to help feed me spiritually.”
Before committing to observe the Sabbath, I thought a lot about its meaning and impact. It can change how I live my life and use my time, not only on Sunday but throughout the week. That idea fills me with some anxiety, but I’m willing to make that change.
Here is how I plan to observe The Lord’s Day:
- Participate at Mass
- Spend time outdoors
- Read
- Write in my journals and blogs
- Reflect on my use of food, water and natural resources
What I will suspend for the day:
- -Email & Facebook
- Shopping
- Household chores and errands
- Wearing a watch
- My daily “To Do” list
Additional Reading:
And God Saw that it was Good – Pope Francis
Encyclical Letter, Laudato Si, On Care for Our Common Home – Pope Francis. (Chapter Six, Ecological Education and Spirituality, VI. Sacramental Signs and the Celebration of Rest. 237.
Apostolic Letter, Dies Domini, On Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy – Pope John Paul II
U.S. Catholic – 7 Ways to Refresh Your Sabbath – Jessie Bazan
The Sabbath as a Basis for an Environmental Theological Ethic – Michael Wood
The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time – Judith Shulevitz
And On The Seventh Day: Astronomy and Sabbath Rest – Fr. James Kurzynski
The Green Bible calls attention to more than 1,000 verses related to nature by printing them in a pleasant shade of forest green, much as red-letter editions of the Bible encrimson the words of Jesus. 
Using recycled paper with soy-based ink, The Green Bible includes supplementary writings by, among others, St. Francis of Assisi, Pope John Paul II, Desmond Tutu and Anglican Bishop N. T. Wright.
See the video here.
The 37th prayer listed “for special occasions” in the Catholic Sacramentary, the official Catholic worship book, is the prayer “to avert storms.” The text reads:
Father, all the elements of nature obey your command. Calm the storm that threatens us and turn our fear of your power into praise of your goodness.
When floodwaters converged on Iowa City in early June, Fr. Jeff Belger, director of the Catholic Student Center, said he started to say the prayer at daily Masses. “It was the first time in five years as a priest that I’ve had to use that prayer.”
I’m sure some people are saying it now, as Tropical Storm Fay approaches the Florida Keys. I am glad to know it, and will have it at hand, in my home out on the East End of Long Island once hurricane season gets underway.
Weather-related prayers – for rain in time of drought or protection from violent storms – are based on a concept of God as the one who controls nature. In many cultures, including our own, people expect priests and religious leaders to petition God for favorable weather, a good harvest, a safe voyage through the storm.
Some might say these prayers in times of terror and stress originate from the child within us. But a very famous scene in the Gospels – Christ rebuking the wind and calming the sea (Mark 4:37-41) – reinforces the belief God will intervene to save us, our loved ones and neighbors, our pets and property as the storm descends in fury.
If not, then to give us the strength to face what we must, and adapt with courage to the circumstances we are given, and trust that, whatever happens, we are always in God’s hands. 
The Dextera Dei, the Right Hand of God, is portrayed on the north face of Muiredach’s Cross, the largests of the stone “high crosses” at Monasterboice in Co. Louth, just north of Dublin. The Hand of God is shown resting on a round carved disk; underneath it two snakes intertwine three human heads.
The monastery was founded around 520 A.D. The cross was carved in the 10th century, and is dedicated to an abbot of Monasterboice, Muiredach mac Domhaill. His death is recorded in 923 A.D.
I was in the presence of the cross on a cold, bright spring morning. The ground was still wet with dew. I remained standing by the Right Hand of God long after the other members of my group moved away. I studied, and looked, and counted, but I couldn’t crack its mystery.
Since I returned home, I have not been able to find any discussion of the iconography of this part of the cross. Are the roots of the artwork in the ancient Irish symbols for the sun, victory and divinity? The Old Testament? The New Testament? All three? The images portrayed have their roots in both traditions: Life, Death, Kingship, Victory, Divinity. Snakes could symbolize the ancient native religion, Satan or fallen angels.
The location of the cross was in an ancient grove had its own meaning. That gently sloping knoll served as a sacred place to the local people well before the arrival of Christian missionaries and monks.
There are referrences to “right hand of God” throughout the Bible. As the messiah, Jesus is supposed to be seated at the Right Hand of God.
But the cross of Muiredach pays as much attention to David as it does Jesus, so I think the origin for the symbols come from one of his stories or psalms.
In my first attempt as a Biblical art detective, I propose the inspiration for the carving comes from Psalm 109. It begins: “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at might right hand: Until I make thy enemies thy footstool.”
Psalm 103.
25 So this is the great sea, which stretcheth wide its arms: there are creeping things without number: creatures little and great. 26 There the ships shall go. This sea dragon which thou hast formed to play therein. 
I love the sea. I love dinosaurs. I love mystery monsters, especially sea monsters. I have all three with the Leviathan. What was it?
Biblical scholars and others have numerous theories about what it was, what it could have been, and what it represented.
I think it might have been an extra large Nile crocodile; but it could also have been an imaginative literary creation based on the discovery of the bones of an ancient marine reptiles. It possbily could have been a living creature of legend, much like the Loch Ness Monster.
Depending on the translation, it can be read as “whale” or “coiled.” If the Leviathan was more whale-like, then I would say it resembled a dunkleosteus or liopleurodon. If “coiled” then a mosasaur or sarcosuchus.
Walking along the beach at Orient, NY I came up this driftwood sculpture. I named it “Leviathan” for its open, roaring mouth and stare across the sea. 
