From Coaching Toys - Sparkers, Creative Ideas and Exercises, comes this little gem of an excerpt:

Sabbath time can be a revolutionary challenge to the violence of overwork, mindless accumulation, and the endless multiplication of desires, responsibilities and accomplishments. Sabbath is a way of being in time where we remember who we are, remember what we know, and taste the gifts of spirit and eternity. -- Wayne Muller: Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in Our Busy Lives

So, how about it - ready to shuck off the overdemanding, overhyped and overrated Puritan work ethic that has only served to put bellows to the fire of modern progress run amok? I know I am, which is why if you see anything posted here on a Saturday, you know something's seriously awry, like my sense of self-importance in thinking the world can't make do without me for 24 hours.

Hell, I don't even turn on the computer or answer the phone unless it's an emergency. (I think I heard someone choking - I hope they're okay. I know the prospect of day sans connectivity is enough to strike terror into the hearts of the weak, the young and the heavily stock-invested.) No, for me Saturday is Sabboth day (no religious significance to the day chosen - it was merely the most convenient) - no work, no worrying about work, no email or surfing, no responsibilities beyond basic life support (I do brush my teeth, but that's about the extent of it), and no pressure to be doing any particular thing. For 24 hours. Straight.

Damn near killed me the first few months. But I'm an old hand, now, so much so that it's beginning to bleed over into my Sundays, although I usually do manage to rouse myself enough to work on a few home-type projects just for the sake of slowing the process of merging from restful and regenerative repose to succumbing to sloth. Here lately, my weekends are being spent staying with Mom out in the wilds of Southeastern Missouri, and she doesn't even have a phone, let alone a tv or a computer. Nothing but me, the cats, the birds and Mom (she's usually wandering from one room to another trying to remember why she went in there). It's like the Gobi desert of social connectivity.

And it works wonders, let me tell you. It's amazing how humbling it is to spend an entire weekend away from work and people and all that jazz, only to find that no one missed you but the friendly gang down at Nigerian Lotto Scams, Inc.

And maybe that's why most of us don't. Maybe we keep working just so we can maintain the illusion of indispensability. I'm busy, therefore I must be needed, because if I wasn't needed, I wouldn't be so busy. To realize that you can disappear off the face of the planet all weekend without creating so much as a ripple in the fabric of social space-time is a hard pill to swallow. To risk discovering that things might actually work better when you're not there is even worse.

So what are you afraid of? What are you running from when you hurry from one appointment to the next, and what are you avoiding by double booking your kid's playdate with a bi-coastal teleconference? There's one sure fire way to find out - spend 24-48 hours without so much as ooking at your phone, your computer or your television and you won't have to go soul-searching to see what fragile illusion you're depending on for your social identity. It'll get right up into your face and serve you notice.

Are you ready to rumble?