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Kathy Hendricks offers talks and retreats across the country and overseas on spirituality and family, and is a contributing writer for many of the programs published by William H. Sadlier. She and her husband, Ron, live in Larkspur, Colorado, and are the parents of two young adults, Eric and Anna.
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Snow Days
It looks like we are in for a snow day. The weather forecast is showing the possibility of six to twelve inches. I hope it is accurate.
As a child, I used to watch the winter skies with the fierce hope that school would be cancelled due to an unexpected snowfall. Even in Denver this didnt happen often. Thats what made snow days so special. Far from keeping us indoors, the abundant snowfall called for bundling up, pulling out the sleds, and heading for the neighborhood hills. After a few hours of careening down Robinson hill, creating snow angels, and pummeling each other with snowballs, my siblings and I were ready to retreat inside for hot chocolate and reruns of old sitcoms. Good times!
My husband, Ron, grew up in San Diego and has no sweet memories of snow days. Since he has held jobs that required him to work outside, winter weather was hardly about cozy opportunities to snuggle around a fire with mugs of tea and a Tolstoy novel. The same is true for those who are housebound by illness or disability, or by those who have to struggle with uncomfortable and sometime dangerous commutes. Struggling with icy roads, frosted windshields, clueless drivers, or crowded subways makes a snow day nothing more than a gigantic nuisance.
Even so, there is something in the concept of a snow day--actual or symbolic--that holds an appeal for most of us. It has to do with the unexpected bestowal of time that occurs when a meeting is cancelled or an event postponed. An open space on the calendar is like an unanticipated gift. The secret is to keep from re-filling it with tedious tasks or guilt-induced obligations. In this way, snow days are akin to keeping the third commandment: "Remember to keep holy the Sabbath." Wayne Mueller points out in his book, Sabbath, that it is the only one of the Ten Commandments to start with the word "remember," and was originally offered to a people who had all of their time taken from them. Remembering what it was like to live in slavery made the summons to a weekly day of abstinence from work an absolute gift.
In modern culture many of us know what it means to be enslaved by the clock. This makes the notion of free time exhilarating. Whether it's waiting for the school bell to signal the start of recess, or receiving an email notifying us of a cancelled meeting, the effect is the same. Receiving unexpected time is nothing short of a divine gift.
The key to the commandment, however, is not just getting a day off; it is keeping it holy. Rather than making work something to endure until we reach the weekend, the commandment invites us to step away from daily regimens in order to be renewed and refreshed. To remember is to recall how God brought liberation to an enslaved people. Ideally we make time each day for Sabbath moments through practices of prayer and reflection. We also need the occasional "snow day"--open time that comes out of the blue and offers opportunities to hunker down and relax, or to go outside to play. Either way, its how we capture those moments and use them that makes all the difference. In that spirit, I am watching the skies and anticipating a lovely day. Maybe I'll go outside to catch a few snowflakes on my tongue. After all, I have plenty of time.
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