We need to discover the spirituality of rest

“Why is it easy to work but hard to rest sometimes?” Christian music artist, Audrey Assad, sings in her song Lament. In a culture that assesses worth based on output, being still (particularly on vacation) is unexpectedly difficult.

We dream all year about the euphoric days of summer. We make plans to really unwind and get away from it all. We imagine that we will transition from frantic to serene seamlessly. But, when the time comes, we try to rest and feel nothing but restlessness.

The truth is that unwinding is a skill and many of us have become unskilled labourers. The secret to becoming artisans of restfulness and to living a life of true repose lies in our ability to see every moment as an opportunity for intimacy and connection with God.

Madeleine Delbrel, French writer, mystic, and now a candidate for sainthood, writes that we must “stealthily snatch” moments of silence from the hours available to us. “This means dealing, sometimes violently, with our ingrained habits and laziness. This is tough, but it is essential for love. Long hours of drowsiness do not add up to 10 minutes of real sleep.”

In order to know what to do with large blocks of free time, i.e. summer vacation, we must first know how to handle small blocks of free time. Do we rush to fill moments of repose with busy-ness? How do we wait in line? What is our mental landscape when we play a repetitive, well loved board game with our children? Are we conscious of the fight against interior silence that is waged in every heart? 

We have come home to God when we no longer fear waiting in silence. And yet, the journey home is long and arduous for so many of us.

In her poem Varieties of Desert , Debrel writes:  “It’s not a question of learning how to waste time but of learning how to be alone in those moments when life offers us a pause ... What a joy to know we can raise our eyes to your naked gaze:

When the oatmeal is thickening;

When the phone keeps ringing;

While waiting for the bus that refuses to come;

As we’re climbing the stairs;

As we’re going to the bottom of the garden to find a few sprigs of parsley to add to the salad.”

When we live in this way, constantly mindful that we are under the tender gaze of the One who loves us, we will find that the weekend does not hold the mystique and the power it once did. Each day will hold within its hours treasures awaiting our discovery.

What a consolation to realize that we are never far away from unearthing said treasures; we need not board a plane to the tropics to experience complete respite from the anxieties that constantly threaten our peace. We need only take one moment to turn the eyes of our heart towards the face of God and simply allow ourselves to be seen fully.

Our joy is not hinged upon anything but our position in reference to God. It must become the subject of our obsession. When we are obsessed with finding God in everything and everyone, our lives will become a masterful and creative testimony to the closeness of God.

“For we are so built that we cannot prefer you without a battle;” Debrel writes, “and we cannot avoid constantly weighing you, our Beloved, against this particular fad or fascination or that corrosive obsession with various trivia.”

We cannot find rest. But rest has already found us. We need to allow ourselves to be penetrated and re-created by the Rest that is God.