When the city never sleeps and more is never enough
In a world where busyness is substituted for happiness
When the days become weeks and weeks become months
And the joy is drained from vocation making it merely labor
We are longing for Sabbath

When the cruel gods of capitalism
Cast images of a life that cannot be attained
When possessions become objects of our bondage
And we find ourselves bondservants of mammon
We are longing for Sabbath

When we construct prisons of grey concrete and glass
And permanently chain ourselves to our offices
Connected by wireless umbilical cords to the necessity of availability
And there is nowhere we can go to break away
We are longing for Sabbath

Where we can accept the gift of rest
Where we can learn to give rather than to grasp
When labor becomes recaptured as vocation
We are once again stewards of the mysteries of faith
As the world rests with its creator
Accepting the gift of Sabbath