As a pastor, I sometimes preach from contradictory texts. Deuteronomy commands complete Sabbath ceasing of work, while in Mark, on the Sabbath Jesus lets his disciples pick grain and heals a withered hand.

Deuteronomy was largely composed in the 7th century B.C.E. — 27 centuries ago. More modern Mark, only 20 centuries.

Sesame Street says, “One of these things is not like the other.” Deuteronomy and Mark offer contrasts for rest and recharging, but Sabbath-keeping is important beyond religion.

How can we apply the concept of a Sabbath now? Many ancient Jewish laws had a rationale: having no understanding of trichinosis, for example, the Jews and Muslims forbade the eating of pork.

We might say as moderns we can abandon ancient customs. But we more need Sabbath-keeping than we imagine, for mental and spiritual well-being as well as physical safety.

Only in the last 50 years have we realized that testing nuclear weapons, even in the remote Marshall Islands, French Polynesia, Nevada or Siberia, creates serious health risks. A community of relocated Marshallese in Arkansas deals with much higher cancer rates, parallel to the farmers and native Americans downwind from U.S. nuclear tests. Only four years ago my son-in-law, in a moon suit in a negative air pressure laboratory, did lung autopsies on COVID victims at the National Institutes of Health to learn what was killing a million Americans. Bleach injections were a ludicrous suggestion, but sophisticated medical research with lifestyle changes for privacy and space were critical.

Myriad signs suggest that something parallel troubles our minds and spirits. We are being bombarded by electronic media — emails, texts, spam calls, TV, the web — and now the new apparition of artificial intelligence, with power for both good and evil.

At Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently, the names of graduates were read aloud by AI, with students placing a QR code on a scanner. But hostile fabricated videos and texts done by AI separate us, distract us, create distrust and antagonism, and weaken our society.

A historian of science commented that our minds are being fracked — that is, drilled and exploded — by the intrusion of electronic media on our attention spans. Modern Pharisees yammer at us. With an explosion of “screen time,” we feel mentally and spiritually “fracked.” Kids in school feel tension and inability to concentrate. Our sorry political and public lives, the balkanization and tribalization of opinion, make us frazzled, less able to realize what is important.

We need to “slow the wheels down,” making clearer judgments about how we live personally and organize as a society. Here are four suggestions:

First, thin out substantially your electronic input. Turn off your TV, leave your laptop in its bag, silence phone noises.

A personal example: recently I said to Spectrum, “Turn off the TV channels. All I want in my house is the internet, for my phone and computer.” Costs dropped from $240 a month to $29.99, making my life calmer and saving $2,500 annually.

Second, create quiet time and space. Read whatever is your scripture, pray, meditate, take a nap, sit on a porch with a book, go for walks, exercise to let out tension. Singing and music-making are wonderful tonics: hymns, or other soul-affirming music. I have a glass of wine, watching the birds at my feeders for soul-healing. Find an equivalent to my birds, with calm, rest, recharging.

Third, spend time people who have meaning for you, family first, including those who annoy you. Connect with people of different ages, the elderly and the young. Get involved with community activities, or invent them.  A young congregant at West Auburn holds “game nights,” with Clue or other games.

Fourth, seek equivalents of Deuteronomy’s escape of the enslaved Jews from Egypt.

A blunt question: What enslaves you in Egypt, keeping yourself in bondage? Perhaps with advice, decide how best to walk out of Egypt, across a drying Red Sea, a path opening miraculously before you.

I rebuilt walking paths in my backyard, partly spiritual in intent, a circular meditative place. These paths, winding through my gardens, are a partial way out of Egypt.

Choosing your Sabbath is deliberative. For nourishment, find the disciples’ heads of grain — not just food, but what feeds you, what keeps you whole and balanced. Look around you for opportunities to heal, first yourself, then others. Face the barriers that separate us from one another.

Most of us need to slow the wheels down. Pick a path out of Egypt, and start.

Bill Hiss of Lewiston is a retired college dean and vice president, and the associate minister of the West Auburn Congregational Church. This essay began as a sermon at his church, and as a guest pastor at the West Bethel Congregational Church.