Maybe you’ve heard of the word “hygge.” It has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary this year and was considered for its word of the year. (“Post-truth” won!) Hygge, pronounced hooga or hyuga, comes from Danish and means “a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.”
As I heard the definition of hygge, I couldn’t help thinking of the Jewish and Christian practice of Sabbath. Sabbath is a time of rest, a time of refraining from work or daily tasks, a time of trusting that God can take care of the world without our help. For Jewish people, Sabbath is practiced from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. Christians adapted the practice to Sunday, the day of resurrection.
The Jewish practice of Sabbath includes not doing the following: writing, erasing, and tearing; business transactions; driving or riding in cars or other vehicles; shopping; using the telephone (landline or cellphone); turning on or off anything which uses electricity, including lights, radios, television, computer, air-conditioners, and alarm clocks; cooking, baking or kindling a fire; gardening and grass-mowing; and doing laundry.
This strictness however is not meant to make it a joyless, sour, boring day. In fact, the Jewish practice of Sabbath is meant to be full of joy and delight, the savouring of food, the wonder of discussing faith & scripture, the enjoyment of relationship, the blessing of family, and the delight of sexual relations between committed partners. Welcoming the Sabbath is understood as being as wondrous and joyful as welcoming a bride at a wedding feast.
Ironically, it was within certain Christian practice of Sunday rest that the joy was taken out of Sabbath. Ironically, because Sunday is the day of resurrection, and a day that should be filled with joy and celebration of life and its goodness. Yet, the loss of Sabbath rest has much to do with the joyless and strict practice of it, which excluded the joy of the Jewish practice. Some of us may remember hating of the restrictions.
Now, we have the opposite. Every day of the week is full and busy. The “almighty dollar” has won. There is no set aside time of rest. Have a look at that list of things one is not to do on the Jewish Sabbath. Admit it – wouldn’t you love a day when you didn’t have to do those things, a day when you felt absolutely free of any demand or requirement? A day just to be! A day for hygge!
But most of us can’t imagine that kind of day. We look at the list of things we must get done. We look around our house and wonder how we will have time to do all the things we see lying around demanding our attention. Our cell phones and computers have added to it, making us constantly accessible. Work no longer ends when we walk out of the office door. Now we are expected to check our work phone and work e-mail even after hours.
If you imagine that you’ll take a break when everything it done, the sad truth is that we never get to the end of our to-do lists. There is always one more thing to do, one more need, one more urgent matter that requires our attention. The time for curling up with a good book, or just cuddling in and doing nothing, never comes. Hygge never arrives.
That is why within spiritual traditions the spiritual practice of rest has so many rules and strictures placed around it. One will not answer the phone, cook a meal, shop or drive a car. The part of us, which values our freedom and independence, protests against such rules, but what freedom do we have in constantly answering to the demands of life!!
The truth is this – when we commit ourselves to Sabbath rest, to doing nothing, absolutely nothing, being very strict and rule-bound about it, we find our freedom – in that 4 hours or 24 hours when we will not answer the phone or a text, or do the laundry or mow the lawn.
When our children were younger, we imposed Sabbath rest upon ourselves. After our time at church for worship in the morning, we continued to hold ourselves to Sabbath. We did not go shopping or do laundry or mow the lawn or answer the phone, even though it was tempting. And what a gift it was – to nap or read or play games with our kids or chat over tea or sit in the backyard or go for a walk around the lake, or take time to create a meal together. I remember looking so forward to that time. I remember how much more joyful and energized I felt having kept to strict sabbath rules.
The amazing thing is that everything that absolutely needed to get done did get done in the rest of the week. And we learned to let go of a few things that really were too much to do.
But it is so easy to slip back into the pattern of society, a society that never rests, never gives permission or space for sabbath or for hygge. What would it hurt to throw in a load of laundry? I’ll just run into the store for one item – that’s all. And suddenly we found ourselves having lost our sabbath rest, and we were the poorer for it.
So we are restoring our Sabbath. It is hard in a culture that schedules events on Sundays. But I need to know that there is time when I have nothing in my schedule, nothing that is required of me. I need to know that there is time when I will not be deciding what I should do first. Instead I will do nothing. I will sit. I will chat. I will drink tea. I will read. I will nap. Not because it is required of me by some outside authority, but because my own spirit requires it.
Whether you call it Sabbath or Sunday rest or hygge, it is a practice that our spirits need. Our children long for us just to be with them, to listen, to play and to focus on their presence, with nothing else pulling our attention away. Our bodies need rest (7 hours a night – but that’s another article). Our spirits and our emotions need time when we are not “on” and not “in charge.” The world will continue to circle the sun, even if we rest. Maybe that is what we fear – that we will not be needed, that the world can continue with us.
Yet, we are harming ourselves and harming the earth by not stopping to rest. Rest is meant to be part of our spiritual practice. God can take care of things without me, without you. So let’s rest! Let’s take time for hygge.
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