Wendell Berry, poet, essayist, and novelist renowned wrote about the strength of a Sabbath. While the majority oft his time of year is spent trying to hustle and bustle around to figure out the perfect table scape and gift for that special someone, what would it mean for us to stop and truly embrace what it means to celebrate as we sabbath - DO rest?

We cannot stop decades of tradition - turkey, dressing, and sweet potatoes have to be made and gifts will be bought. But rather than watching yet another holiday season fleet by, take the time to ruminate on the following Wendell Berry poem as we work to embrace the opportunity to sabbath this holiday season: 

Who makes a clearing makes a work of art,

The true world's Sabbath trees in festival

Around it. And the stepping stream, a part

Of Sabbath also, flows past, but its fall

Made musical, making the hillslope by

Its fall, and still at rest in falling, song

Rising. The field is made by hand and eye,

By daily work, by hope outreaching wrong,

And yet the Sabbath, parted, still must stay

In the dark mazings of the soil no hand

May light, the great Life, broken, make its way

Along the streamy footholds of the ant.

Bewildered in our timely dwelling place,

Where we arrive by work, we stay by grace.

Berry comments that he intends for his poetry to be read outdoors. Try it. Work to bring your holiday festivities back to a place of recognizing the reality of a life lived in peace and rest. 

Happy Thanksgiving.