Rest

Jan 06, 2024

I returned late last night from a few days away at Montreat, North Carolina. I wasn’t at a conference there (my daughter was) but I just had a rental for some days of what I planned for writing, rest, and hiking. I did two of those three things - the writing didn’t happen. There was a lot of these last few days that were my body and spirit telling me that it was time to rest and just not do. I am grateful that I listened and did exactly that. There were a few other things that took place that were deeply significant, specifically on one hike but not everything is for sharing with the world. But it was a holy and a beautiful time. I am grateful. My daughter sent me this prayer that was used in one of the services for her college conference. It was written by Cole Arthur Riley (one of the speakers at the event)

Rested God, we want more than a life lived exhausted. That you have woven healing rhythms of rest into our minds and bodies reminds us we are worthy of habitual restoration. Remind us that when we pause or rest, we are restoring not only our own bodies but the very condition of a world held captive by greed and utility. We grow weary of societies who view us as more machine than human, more product than soul. The fear that we won't survive without overworking stalks our days. Liberate us from the depraved socioeconomic structures that require that the poor and vulnerable sacrifice their own rest at the altar of survival and opportunity. Remind us that the beauty and paradox of our humanness is that we were made to close our eyes, that we might see. May it be so.

I am grateful that I was able to have this time. Yet even as I take this time, I realize that this is not the reality for most to have a time such as I just did. It weighs on me the way that, as Riley puts it so well, we are part of “societies who view us as more machine than human, more product than soul.” As I started my Bible in a year reading once again, I was reminded early on this trip that the creation story has the need to rest built right into the fabric of it all and how far we have moved away from that reality.

Probably the most significant photos of my time were these two.

These were from my last morning there and the ice was just starting to grow out from the shore on Lake Susan. It reminded me of that moment in Colorado in December that I wrote about a few weeks ago. But there was a lot that stirred in me with this one. One was a question of whether I will live open and or whether I will allow frozenness and stoicism to creep in. Will I live letting the still-speaking-Spirit speak into my heart and move through my life or will I just be content with what has always been?

The other was somewhat the opposite - it was seeing what looked to me like feathers growing in the ice patterns. Gentle and delicate but yet strong and powerful enough to allow a bird to fly and to stay warm in winter.

What do you see?

Here are a few other photos from my time away including Scout deciding it was time for some down dog...