Weekly Sabbath
Tim Richardson
The Power of the Pause/Exceptional Service keynotes, workshops, and panel discussion facilitator. Speaker, author, husband, father, outdoor enthusiast, and aspiring jazz pianist.
Growing up in a small northwest Florida town, we were forced into taking a Sunday Sabbath. There wasn’t much to miss as the town only had 6,000 residents and there were very limited entertainment options. There was no movie theater, no bowling alley, no putt-putt golf course, and certainly no water park or arcade. Our Sundays, by today’s standards, were quiet and unscheduled, a clear break from the rest of the week.??
I could count on two things happening on Sundays when I was growing up: going to church and then eating a large family meal together after.?If a rare activity occurred outside of family time, it could be anything a creative mind could imagine. Once when a new road was built, the county planted grass on the steep side of the road to keep the soil from eroding. After the grass covered all the topsoil, refrigerator boxes acquired from Western Auto became our Florida sleds and we would race to the bottom.???
?While Sundays were perfect for a hike along the Chattahoochee River, a swim at the lake, or hunting for Indian artifacts,?mostly we just slowed down. Often, we did nothing at all.?
?I didn’t think of any of this last Sunday when I worked in my yard for almost three hours. While I’ve been taking a weekly break from technology and screens for a few years, I haven’t always left house-projects, outside chores, and office work alone.??
?We aren’t designed to work all the time. We need rest, recuperation, and weekly pauses to disengage from our mental activity.??
Chris-Tia Donaldson?is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Thank God It's Natural, a manufacturer of natural hair and skin care products. She wrote about taking a Sunday Sabbath in a recent LinkedIn post:?
“I?realized that, in the corporate world, observing the Sabbath is rarely ever practiced, with Chick-fil-A being one of the few exceptions to the rule. Their policy of closing on Sundays is more than just a religious-based one; it allows their employees to rest and reminds their customers it’s OK to do the same.”??
A good reminder for us as well.?
Senior Vice President at Pinnacle Financial
2 年Very good article and reminder. Thanks for sharing!
President ICMAS
2 年When we lived in Madison Wi back in the mid 80's nearly all the stores and most noticeable their Westtown mall closed at 4 pm Saturdays and did not to reopen until 10 am Monday. It was at first a strange felling but we both got used to it and then loved it that the community shut down. We could take stock of the week past and mentally prepare for what was ahead but mostly we enjoyed the family time.
Partner at Sheehan Phinney Capitol Group
2 年Love this, Tim!
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2 年Great article. I often fail at trying to do nothing on a given day! I will strive to be more faithful! My childhood was very similar to yours, except in freezing NH! We slid on snow down hills LOL.
Senior Consultant at Self Storage 101
2 年Good stuff Tim - I wonder how "sabbatical" relates. How many of us are able to carve out extended time every few(or several) years to do the same thing on a grander scale? How would companies/organizations benefit from providing this opportunity to their leadership and staff?