Weekends

How do you use your weekend? Saturdays and Sundays are days of rest, the Sabbath or Shabat in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Updating and extending that tradition, I would like to be part of a community that makes Saturdays or Sundays a day to engage "the whole person." That is, I would like to organize activities that stimulate and cultivate all aspects of life. If these were to be (falsely) partitioned as mind, body and spirit, activities could include a lecture and discussion; exercise/sports; and breathing awareness/meditation/prayer. For me, fun is also an important aspect of life, so I'd want to finish the day with music/dance/a movie, some sort of entertainment. And service or social justice would also add balance to this mix, so it would be nice to do something that enriches the community at large.

It's weird to me that this appeals to me. I guess it's my take on church, which is also weird to me. Why is church weird?

I also wonder why I'm so interested in integration. Perhaps it's an unattainable ideal that can never be reached. But is it even warranted in the first place? Why do I want all the aspects of my life to coalesce and interact? Is that healthy? What's the need for limits? Should we have barriers between our personal/profession, private/public life? New media technologies are shifting the balance between these spheres of life.

In keeping with the theme of this blog, a good weekend that cultivates the whole person would include mindful media usage. For example, it would be nice to focus the party by doing a guided listening of the music, or making it interactive, or having a lecture about where the music comes from. Or, if we accept that our body is our most basic medium for interaction with the world, yoga would be a great way to bring awareness to the way we use our bodies, and exercise becomes like system maintenance.

This weekend I'm not doing anything like this, but maybe next weekend?