When Issue 3 of the Bagpipe was published, one of the most striking and eye-grabbing articles in the Opinions selection was Adi Smith’s “Sabbath, Worship and the Blink.” Smith argues that keeping the Blink open on Sundays ignores the call for Christians to keep a day of sabbath and prevents those who work at the Blink from resting on Sundays.
Smith asks good questions and calls for a closer analysis of how we practice the Sabbath. As many chapel talks have pointed out, the campus as a whole is struggling with finding true rest and burnout. Finding time for sabbath in a busy season has been a constant conversation in my own circles. However, I do not think closing the Blink is the answer to the question of how we are resting, especially since it is not only our Blink employees experiencing anxiety, sadness and stress.
One problem with closing the Blink on Sundays so that employees can take the Sabbath that day is it ignores the workers' agency and limits their ability to work. Working at the Blink, since it goes late into the night, is not a daily job like Facilities and Grounds, so there is a limited number of hours between work and school to be divided between the employees.
It also eliminates the possibility of taking a sabbath on Saturday, an option some students have found they prefer in order to be present on campus and have the energy to do their weekend homework.
Sabbath is equally communal as it is individual, and food is a gift from God to easily find community around. It is what makes the Great Hall such a special place to be in community. Simply chalking the Blink up to unnecessary to be open on the weekend ignores the good that comes from that space that can also be pleasing to God.
Having the sabbath once a week means working our schedules around it, not the other way around, in order to fully rest in his gifts and goodness. But when we limit the sabbath to a rigid time, place and rhythm that doesn’t work for everyone in order to get it right, we miss the goodness that comes from it, which is why God gave us the sabbath in the beginning.