When I first began teaching on the Sabbath, I was struck that those who resisted the most were mothers with children. Ultimately, their concern was that we were inviting people into something that was not practical or possible for them. Many of those mothers felt shamed for staying at home and caring for a family and then, on top of it, felt shamed for not having a Sabbath in place in their home. Sabbath is not honored through shame or guilt. Put simply, shame is work—tedious work to be exact. Shame and rest are mutually exclusive realities.14 If Sabbath becomes about heaping shame on anyone
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