Today is a day for Sabbath-making. Lunch will be a cacao e pepe in a Parmesan bowl with a glass of red wine and some home-made pickles. This simple dish is merely a matter of making some pasta, tossing it in some of the pasta water with a good Parmesan cheese and some black pepper and plating it in a Parmesan bowl made by melting a thin layer of long-shredded Parmesan cheese and frying it in a non-stick pan till it becomes a crispy bowl. Pop it out of the pan and place the cacao e pepe into it and serve. It is crunchy and cheesy, smooth and peppery. http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/cacio-e-pepe
A Sabbath day is sometimes a day to simply stop, sometimes a day to run errands made impossible by daily schedules and sometimes a day for deep creativity in some form of art or friendship-deepening.
There is an art, a science and a spirituality to a great Sabbath day of rest. And of course, unless keeping the Sabbath free of work causes some harm to oneself or another. It is a commandment modeled by God in the creation story.
It is so tempting to check email, just do one little work item, just respond to a few emails so people do not get frustrated or annoyed. But scripture does not refer to “interrupting” the Sabbath; scripture uses the word “break.” In our scriptures a Sabbath is Holy and when unnecessarily interrupted by work it is “broken.” For some, low income or children or other real, needful demands interrupt a Sabbath and that is life – completely understandable.
Scriptures say that we must keep the Sabbath Holy. The question is what makes it “Holy?” It is not the church. It is not the absence of work. It is not laws of the religion. It is, I think, the delight of a carefully made and favorite meal or a determined time with a close friend that is what makes a Sabbath “Holy.”
