Let's give ourselves an A for effort. When we fail to rest we do more than burn ourselves out. We misunderstand the God who calls us to rest--who created us to be people of rest. Let's face it: our rest needs work. Sabbath recalls our creation, and with it God's satisfaction with us as he made us, without our hurried wrangling and harried worrying. It also recalls God's deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, and with it God's ability to do completely what we cannot complete in ourselves. Sabbath keeping reminds us that we are free to rest each week. Eighteen months in Tel Aviv, Israel, where a weekly sabbath is built into the culture, began Lynne M. Baab's twenty-five-year embrace of a rhythm of rest--as a stay-at-home mom, as a professional writer working out of her home and as a minister of the gospel. With collected insights from sabbath keepers of all ages and backgrounds, offers a practical and hopeful guidebook that encourages all of us to slow down and enjoy our relationship with the God of the universe.
2012 and 2013 have been exciting years for me as a writer. My ninth non-fiction book was published in 2012. I love the title, which I did not dream up! Joy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your Congregation focuses on ways groups of people can engage in spiritual practices together, such as thankfulness, fasting, sabbath keeping, contemplative prayer and others. There's a chapter on the ways these spiritual practices play a role in discernment, and another chapter that addresses some of the recent criticisms of spiritual practices.
Also in 2012, I published a murder mystery for Kindle. The title is Dead Sea: A Novel, and the story is set in Israel and Jordan. Come and do some travelling with Samantha, a reluctant guide on an archaeological tour, who helps a police detective unravel the mystery. The book includes questions for book groups. A sequel to Dead Sea, with the title Deadly Murmurs: A Novel, was published in early 2013.
I'm rejoicing about another recent release, the kindle version of my book on midlife spirituality, A Renewed Spirituality: Finding Fresh Paths at Midlife.
I invite you to visit my website, www.lynnebaab.com, to learn more about my books and to read articles I've written on some of the same topics as the books. You can find me on Facebook as Lynne Baab and on Twitter as @lynnebaab.
I'm currently working on a sequel to Deadly Murmurs, as well as a non-fiction book on listening in congregations which will be published by The Alban Institute in 2014.
I teach pastoral theology at a university in Dunedin, New Zealand. I am still deeply engaged with the topics I've written about it my books. I keep a sabbath every week and I still see fasting as a significant way to disengage with the consumer culture. I love and practice a variety of spiritual disciplines which are meaningful to me and have shaped my spiritual life. I still enjoy thinking about and talking about personality type and issues of midlife, and I continue to speak and teach about preventing burnout among Christian leaders. And I still love my friends, who have been such a gift to me.
I am so grateful for the privilege of being a writer. If you have read my books, thank you. If you choose to purchase one of my books for the first time, I hope and pray that it will stimulate your thinking and encourage you to draw near to God in love, joy and obedience.
