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AD 2005, Volume 4, Issue 4

From the Middle of November to New Year’s Day, New Yorkers celebrate a special holiday: a holiday happier than Hanukah, merrier than Christmas, and more politically correct than Kwanza.  New Yorkers have called it “Sparkle Season.” No one can define Sparkle Season, but we all know what it is: swarms of consumers buzzing busily about New York, like so many mosquitoes around that neon bug-zapper that hangs on your front porch.  In order to swarm efficiently, we arm ourselves with day timers and we divvy our days into fifteen-minute microsegements.  And when one day is so full, who has time for the hammock or the front porch?  To many, rest is inefficient—it doesn’t do anything “productive.”  We combat our weariness with ramboisms like “you can rest when you’re dead,” or “the world is run by tired men,” and the more pious among us will quote Ephesians 5:16—“make the most of your time because the days are evil.”  But how do we make the most of our time?  Is it by constant motion?  If so, is chronic weariness a sign of fruitfulness?

Rest is part of the biblical order.  It is a time for evaluation, a time for thanksgiving, a time for re-creation.  On the seventh day, God rested.  Surely we won’t say that He is not fruitful.  God calls us to labor and to love and to rest in twenty-four hour chunks, and as Solomon said, “A wise man fills one fist with labor and the other with rest.  The sluggard has two fist-fulls of rest, while the slave has two of labor.

And how about you?  In this issue of the Pub, we encourage you to check your day timer at the door, find yourself a corner, pour yourself a pint, and join the conversation.