Rest as a Sacred Act

Amanda Jane was having one of those no good, terrible, horrible days described in the bedtime story she read Guinevere the night before:
Her husband took the last drop of Maxwell, she was running late to get the girls to school, drop off the black & white cookies at the church bake sale that the dogs somehow got into as she was kvetching at John for taking the last of the coffee and not taking out the trash while he rushed off
to yet another appointment with his mom at the neurologist, and the Millers called wanting to move up the closing on the house across town.
In the midst of all this, one of her sponsees called on the verge of a relapse, if not already several cups in. Such was her state of mind at the corner of
Patton and Vine as Amanda Jane wistfully spied the long line at the Starbucks drive-thru out of one eye while applying mascara to the other.
“Call me Ismael,” she sighed.
“Who’s Ismael, Mommy?” Guinevere asked from the backseat, black & white cookie crumbs
dripping all over the place.
“Ismael was a guy who bit off more than he could chew, Boo.
Much more than he could chew.”
So may it be with you.
Often the knowing-doing gap lies with what we are capable of doing, what we feel we can and, should be doing, and what we as one person, or in this case, one typically busy mom, are able to reasonably accomplish on a Tuesday morning. It’s enough to lead to run-on sentences.
John Cage, a master of musical rests, titled his autobiographical collage, How to Improve the World? (You’ll Only Make Matters Worse).
On these days when the dark seems poised to
overcome the light. When just getting, bleary-eyed, out of bed is a challenge of Moby Dick
proportions it is helpful to remember that rest is a sacred act.
Rest and space.
Notice that Jesus got on a boat away from the madding crowd, before he addressed them.
Notice that the Creator of the universe takes Saturdays off.
Notice that wild geese flying south take turns in the pole position.
And for those other times when there seems to be no rest for the righteously wicked?
There’s always Starbucks.