Now today, of course, women in every American city north of the Mason-Dixon line
   cheerfully wear "Glamour Don't" outfits in public every day of the week -
           we've learned to pick corn on the Sabbath and wear whatever we feel like while we do
regardless of what the Pharisees or Glamour magazine have to say.
But despite our liberated ways of thinking,
in a small-town community like ours, saying "no" can feel like a real "Glamour Don't."
How can we, as a community, get the job done - in our town, our schools, our church -
and keep from making anyone feel selfish or guilty when they feel they have to say 'no'?
How can we help each other claim and keep the sacred time we all need?

What if we made it a community-wide "Glamour Do" to support each other in claiming sacred time?
To turn ourselves into a wise Personnel Committee.
To acknowledge that time for family, time with spouses, time with a close friend
is not discretionary time that we fit in if and when we can - it's sacred time.
If we could do that, it would be a community-wide act of grace.
And I think our lives depend on it.

Sooner or later, we all have to deal with something that turns our life on end,
it may even be something close to unbearable,
  like a son born with a broken heart, an incomplete heart, part of a heart --
   not enough to keep him alive.
We all have to face things that feel as if they might break our own hearts,
and like that little boy's father, we may find ourselves slipping into a cold, black country.
When a hand comes out of the dark, like a hawk, to pull us back, to save us,
it may be the hand of a husband, a wife, a partner; it may be the hand of a friend.
It will be the hand of someone who loves us, and who is paying attention.
And we pay that kind of attention to each other by claiming and keeping sacred time together.

Wendell Berry wrote these lines:

I dream of a quiet man
who explains nothing and defends
nothing, but only knows
where the rarest wildflowers
are blooming, and who goes
where they are and stands still
and finds that he is smiling
and not by his own will.

We all need a space in time when we don't have to explain anything or defend anything,
when we can simply be in the presence of something, of someone, rare and beautiful -
  and find that we are smiling, and not by our own will...

May we all learn to create our own Sabbath.
And may this week, for you and yours, be set apart, sacred, and filled with thanksgiving.
Amen.