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A Vacation Log: What I Have Learned About Rest

It is a familiar drive, one done enough times that I have stopped counting. When I pull up to the cabin, a wave of calm comes over me. This place is shared with me by generous and loyal friends. It is the first week of August, the very beginning of my holidays. As soon as I am unpacked, I grab a book and head to the dock. I look out at the water and notice the sound of it lapping along the shore. A dragonfly lands on my arm. I exhale and close my eyes. 

As peaceful as my surroundings are, it takes time for me to settle. Sometimes I feel anxious, I think because my body is remembering my typical schedule and somehow believes I am forgetting where I need to be- at a staff meeting or doing a meal-to-go or on a fundraising call. I also recognize that I am not nearly done processing the past year, one that has been packed with transition and a lot of grief. I break out into tears multiple times, not even sure what I am crying about specifically at any given moment. I decide to give myself space for all of it. 

As the week wears on, I can feel a shift toward rest. I am drawn to dancing in the kitchen while I am cooking, watching the hummingbirds for extended periods of time, reading an entire book in a day, kayaking the perimeter of the lake, and napping in the sun. The solitary time, while not always easy, is good. It points me toward what is going on in my heart and mind and urges me to raise it up in prayer. 

I leave the cabin and return to the city. Some days are quiet and slow. Other days are full of visits and outings. Dion and I drive to Niagara Falls for a day. I get on a plane to fly to Nova Scotia to visit friends and family. While there, I officiate my cousin’s wedding. It is a beautiful day, one that I can only think to describe as magical. My feet hurt (in the best way) from all the dancing. I return to crisis that is now fortunately retracting its head. Today I am saying a tearful goodbye to friends-like-family who are moving across the country for a year. I am feeling all the feels. 

Marva Dawn writes about the components of Sabbath being ceasing, resting, embracing and feasting. I know that settling into that kind of rhythm is what I desire. And it is surprisingly hard work. I am learning that to truly rest I must cease, whether that be for ½ a day or a week or a month. This August I have been provided the space to journey from ceasing all the way to feasting. There have been bumps and distractions along the way. I am learning that rest does not promise a cessation of challenge. I am also convinced that it equips me to keep doing what I love to do. 

I sit in my living room and gaze at the darkness of the night through the window. I am happy to be motivated to write for the first time this month. I can hear a cricket. I’m thinking about making some popcorn to eat. In just a few days I will be picking up my daughter, Cate and like-a-son, Declan at camp. They are both going to be living in the house with me this coming year. I exhale and close my eyes, just as I did on the dock at the cabin. I feel many things, but not anxious. Soon I will return to work.

I am ready.

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Rest, Even On the Roller Coaster

I was recently asked to describe the last six or so months of my life. As I shared the variety of things that have taken place, I stopped and for a moment thought “if nothing else, my life is consistently a roller coaster”. Up and down, up and down, sometimes all in one day. This existence is good, and hard, and full, punctuated by gratitude and grief. Which is why I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of Sabbath: a day of ceasing, a time of rest.

Many people scoff at the idea of Sabbath. It feels like a punishment: as though you must stop everything you enjoy doing, risk falling behind at work, and feel guilty about both. I have come to understand that Sabbath is actually meant to be a beautiful gift, and isn’t just a means to be more productive during the week. As John Bradshaw put it, “we have become ‘human doings’ who define ourselves by what we do in the world. [Sabbath] teaches us to remember our true essence as ‘human beings’ and to practice the art of simply being”.

This is, at least for me, difficult. I enjoy being productive. I love being with people and very easily fill up my calendar. But rest calls me to something even more challenging than to cease being busy: it invites me to release the anxiety that I carry around. Many of the hardships I face are ones that I have no control over, and yet I somehow believe that if I worry or do enough, I will somehow be able to “fix” everything.

It takes discipline to create space for rest. I long for the kind of break where my mind is not preoccupied with all that I should be doing and everything that may or may not happen in the future. I suspect that if space is made, something that I’m not planning or counting on might actually happen. As author Marva Dawn once said and I’ve quoted before, “A great benefit of Sabbath keeping is that we learn to let God take care of us, not by becoming passive or lazy, but in the freedom of giving up our feeble attempts to be God in our own lives”.

I suspect the roller coaster is going to continue. As hard as it is, I’m grateful for all the experiences that are teaching me to touch life beyond the surface. My hope is that I will keep learning to put the brakes on. Maybe as I slow down I can be reminded how to be and not simply do. In the quiet, I might even catch a glimpse of the good things in store over the next crazy hill, and instead of being anxious, I can enjoy the anticipation.

rollercoaster

 

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Working to Rest: Resisting An Attempt to Control

I am working hard to have a day that resembles rest this week. Doesn’t that sound wrong?

For the last few years I have intentionally taken a Sabbath at the end of the week instead of on Sunday, a day that is too much a whirl of activity to be considered restful. On my day off I find myself anxiously thinking about all the things I need to do, especially at The Dale. I worry about fundraising. I think of all the e-mails I should be writing. I craft a newsletter in my head because surely that will alleviate my concern about the budget. I plot meetings and what times they might work.

Oh, the irony and agony.

The crazy thing is that I know I need to rest and nothing is going to immediately change or get fixed if I do it right now. No newsletter is going to be written, laid out, printed and sent out in a single day; we are in a new year and the way our eventual year-end looks will not be decided in an afternoon; the meetings don’t need to be set until next week. Worrying, as I repeatedly tell myself, will not help.

I finally settle into our big arm-chair with a cup of coffee in my hand, close my eyes and pray. I remember a quote from author Marva Dawn, “A great benefit of Sabbath keeping is that we learn to let God take care of us, not by becoming passive and lazy, but in the freedom of giving up our feeble attempts to be God in our own lives.”

My own feeble attempt to be in control rapidly unravels. Fortunately as it does, I finally find rest.