Scripture

Genesis 2:1-3

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

Day 7 of Creation: Surrender to Love, Justice, and Abundance

by Rev. Cory Bradford-Watts

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Sometimes we're confused about what brings us peace (at least I can be!) and we search around for those activities and settings that help to bring it, but ultimately feel like we're grasping at straws. Or sometimes we accept our idea that peace is entirely elusive, and settle on managing our obsessive, anxious thoughts with distractions and coping mechanisms. We never quite find a true sense of peace or the "flow-state" that self-help gurus speak of, but who cares? It is what it is, right?

The spiritual meaning of the seventh day of creation, called the Sabbath ("rest"), is uplifted throughout scripture - biblical and others. We're told that a true sense of inner peace comes from surrendering to the greater love within: that if we work to disentangle ourselves from our obsessive attachments and distracted, lustful thinking, we find that we can surrender to an underlying clarity and peace of consciousness, which gently taps into the reality of love in our depths and around us. This Divine or Universal Love, at the root of all our minds, ultimately makes all things one and can't help but naturally uplift and empower justice, equality, and abundance.

Often, we get distracted by the literal sense of Sabbath or peace, thinking that to truly find peace we must literally be doing nothing or perhaps, resting in peace. We think that the state of finding Sabbath and surrendering to the flow of life is relegated to one day a week or a couple of weeks a year, instead of realizing that reaching a state of Sabbath can only be truly realized as a mindset and an internal spiritual reality.

So, what's the trick? Well, funny enough, like in the spiritual sense of the creation story - to reach our own Sabbath day we must work at it. This involves letting go of our divisive, attached thinking, which ranges from starting to release all of our egotistical musings and ideas, to starting to think of everything as One and worthy of compassion and support. This is why on the sixth day of creation, Divinity tells humanity that it's our responsibility to increase the abundance of all life around us: the first biblical commandment that if we were truly willing to follow would lead to our own societal Sabbath day - no longer worrying about scarcity or the egotistical motive of making only our-self abundant - and we could truly rest.

The Prince of Peace named God-with-us the-Savior ("Jesus Christ") put it this way, "My burden is light." We are tasked with working to make things easier for ourselves and for all beings: with leaning into peace, abundance, justice, and love. This is a time in our world where we most clearly need such hard work for Sabbath; if we don't fight for democracy, fight for our values and for the poor and oppressed, we will find that things only get harder and that no peace can be found under the grip of despotism and the scarcity of greed.

This type of social work of uplifting Divine Love with Peace, Justice, and Abundance can seem impossible in our world, which is also why the internal work of doing this, of finding Sabbath, is necessary. The phrase, "it starts in the home," is apt because we can only seek to consistently embody and further what we already are within. Taking some time on a Sabbath day or every day to help ground a sense of peace, oneness and abundance is a practice that truly does help to further our Sabbath even when we are diligently at work or in crises. And remembering the principles of a peaceful, non-obsessive open-mind, and a heart bent on infinite oneness and compassion can deliver our spirits even in the hardest of moments to a place of peace and to better express that peace and unconditional love outwardly.

This also can help us to see why diversity is beautiful and important, and why God speaks through many ages and many peoples in so many wonderful ways: the Infinity of Divinity is expressed through the goodness of all creation, and especially our fellow humans - who are "very good" because we're empowered by the Creator to uplift the abundance of all life.

To open ourselves to oneness and surrender to love means that we have to let go of our egoic thinking and mindsets. This is more than just letting go of egotism and outright selfishness, it's also allowing ourselves to think beyond "me vs. them" and beyond the divisions of "I and they," "it and that," and find our intrinsic, internal Sabbath. It's connected to the mindfulness practices of letting go of our recursive, object-oriented thinking: allowing our attachments, fears, and judgments developed from feelings of separateness and of scarcity and lack to fall away. In a way, this means seeing the spirit within all of creation, and surrendering our minds to our Divine empowerment of light, humanity, peace, and goodness. Not ignoring evil, but accepting each moment when it comes, so that our non-reactivity and ability to sustain sound, loving judgment allows us to transform those moments. Even today, this might allow the light to shine even in the most painful of times because we've surrendered everything and everyone to the light of compassion, always uplifting the peace and justice of love.

Peace and blessings,

Rev. Cory