From the Editor
Welcoming the Sabbath
by Rosa Jimenez
What is it about those words? When I first read Terrie Aamodt’s feature manuscript in my e-mail, I connected at once with this opening line:
“As the hour of sundown nears on this Friday evening, a calm settles on campuses wherever students and faculty worship their Creator on the traditional Sabbath.”
In this introduction Terrie quotes Loren Dickinson, who once read these words over kgts airwaves each Friday at sunset. I have lived in the Walla Walla Valley most of my life, so this radio piece was a familiar one.
Reading Dickinson’s words evoked my own college memories of Sabbath. I remembered being in church with friends and especially the silence of campus as Friday evening approached.
On the campus, the stillness of Friday and Sabbath afternoon endures, the quietness broken occasionally by the College Church chimes, a tradition remembered fondly by many.
The great thing about campus life is that while many of the Sabbath traditions remain, students have many new ways of celebrating Sabbath. One popular choice is Friday evening’s Improv, where Walla Walla College students and other local young people meet in a downtown Walla Walla building for communion, church, or community service.
For some students, Sabbath means time away from the crowds of people. It may mean slowing down and spending time alone with God or with friends and family.
I hope our students will have good memories of the Sabbaths of their college years. And I hope those memories are just the roots of a lifetime of Sabbaths, a day God created as one of His best gifts to us.
