Rest and wrest, two words that sound the same. One refreshes and assembles, the other separates. To wrest something from another something takes effort. Do we divide to conquer, or do we include and come to more wholeness? I’d like to mull this in July as we celebrate freedom on the fourth of July
Phrases posted on Facebook, July 2024
Real rest, escape from restlessness and the constant urge to act, to have and to do, is a pure gift. Exhaustion that takes us to a standstill is not real rest. Animals know how to do it naturally. They honor their inner signals to stop. Bombarded by and addicted to technology,
we’ve lost that natural signal to surrender to our being. I sometimes wonder if true resting could now be considered a revolutionary act.
When were we truly at rest . . . maybe a Nano second with the TV off and the smart phone disconnected? I wonder if real rest isn’t a time when we wrest ourselves out of speed, out of “have-to” and “need-to”’? When we drive ourselves toward whatever destination we have decided upon, we pull off at a rest stop to allow our bodies to catch up with our souls.
This rest is not because we ran out of fuel, but because we are missing something central and precious. We are separated from our essence.
Don’t you love photos of pets fast asleep? Thery give themselves over totally to rest as if they were folded into peace . . . part of it and emanating it. Looking at those photos, I want that feeling to be infectious, to teach me to be kind to my body and to give it peace.
Here is wisdom from Thomas Merton that a friend sent me.
“To allow oneself to be caried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to the violence of our times. “
More from Thomas Merton
“The very act of resting is
the hardest most courageous act
a person can perform.”
What habit, attitude, fear or conviction sits at the back of the mind and keeps us from truly resting? Our bodies may be quiet, but our minds are racing as usual. Or the other way around. I think it may be that, for some, truly resting is an immense act of trust. Perhaps at the heart of the matter, is that to gently and kindly stop is an act of faith.
Sometimes we simply need to crash before we are willing to rest. Such” crashes” are both physical and mental. Fatigue takes over, and the body can’t do anything but stop. Still, somewhere deep inside we know resting can be a gracious choice. To choose it is to allow a different life, a different sense of self. It allows spaciousness, ease and the lovely surprise of arriving and being in the place we already are. Our souls have caught up with our bodies.
Have you noticed the rhythm animals have vis a view rest? They run around, fly, swim, play, eat, etc., but at the end of a unit of engagement, they stop and rest. Imagine if we as a culture did that? I am sure we would find a world much kinder than the one we live in now.
It’s so easy to return to mayhem even after a good rest. We can let a small annoyances be big enough that the wonderful peace that was ours is left behind. Little, and big abound. They are like flies we swat at, but they seem always to be just out of range. I know of no better remedy for myself than doing some small and kind thing for someone else. Rest
eventually comes again, but it will be a while.
Any time I have let myself have a “lost” day, that is, one in which I do not have an agenda nor scold myself for not having one, becomes not only a day of rest, but one of rejuvenation. I live that day. I don’t do it, checking off one duty after the other. A lost day is a found day.
I’ve been thinking about the difference between letting go and letting be. For me letting go is an act of will and is often helpful. Letting be is different, an arrival in the present where a chair is simply a chair-self, the rain is rain and my very human self is here with no embellishments. In letting be, everything is included How marvelous that.without assessing there is only blessing.
Giving something a rest has always helped me, though sometimes I find it hard to do so. Something I am working on runs into a snag. I might keep at trying to solve the problem. Over time I have learned to go do something else . . . have a cup of tea, go for a walk. You get the idea. Often the needed solution arrives as if from left field. Difficult things have their own timing. Giving things time can be a kind of respect for oneself and the challenge.
This is the last post on rest and wrest. I’m giving the subject a rest. Summer is disappearing fast. Let’s wrest some sweet rest and summer leisure in the weeks ahead.
