No Rest for the Wicked

Most of us know there is a commandment crossing at least three faiths that says something like "Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy." Whether you're celebrating on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday--or another day-- most traditions tell you not to work.

Do they have any idea how hard that is -- NOT WORKING? If you work at a job all week, the weekend may be the only time you have to do errands or clean house or cook or do creative work. Some festivals last months or at least weeks and how can you not engage in your normal routine?

I am trying as hard as I can to stay away from work. I succeed maybe 25% of the time -- and I promise, I am really trying.

What do you define as work? There's a slew of things, and I'm not doing the defining. The Judeo-Christian tradition has prohibited numerous activities on the Sabbath - including any kind of work you do during hte week, or cooking, housework, and more. 

The Jewish tradition has 39 prohibitions that include writing (uh-oh) -- along with turning on lights, driving a car, carrying boxes or anything outside the home, shopping, burning something, sewing it, tearing (such as a package) --

*Scream*

Do you have time to mend buttons when you get home from work, after you fed the cat, sift through mail, put groceries away, etc.?

I try as hard as I can to do that. I have mostly succeeded. But not writing - my own creative writing -- is unimaginably hard and most of the time, I fail to not do it.

I rationalize it, telling myself it's not the same as other work (though it isn't). Still, it is work, as Stephen Sondheim's characters say in Sundays in the Park with George. One says "Artists work very hard" while the other says that work is what you do for others--while art is what you do for yourself.

That's what I say, though I believe making good art requires working at it.

I need a dispensation. Or accommodation, or whatever they do at offices when you have extenuating circumstances and need an adjustment. Religion doesn't allow adjustments, but I still need one. Until I get it, I'm probably going to fail at not working on the Sabbath.

And whether you think that's good, bad or indifferent -- you must at least know? Not working is the most exhausting thing there is.

Writing photo: Julie Jordan Scott