Rest

One of our almost constant, often unconscious, choices is how to balance activity and rest.

Reasonable rest is as essential to health as reasonable activity.  

Rest is not doing nothing.

Rest is not idleness.

Rest is fundamental to self care.

September 19, 2021

Ignorance, inability, failure and lack of comprehension, others' and our own, are often, and from early ages, judged harshly. In ourselves, perhaps that is because those are the qualities, and boundaries, of the selves we have outgrown, or would like to have outgrown. When we judge others, perhaps our insecurities are showing. In any case, from late childhood, people usually try to avoid ignorance, inability, failure, and incomprehension, or deny them.

I recently helped care for my step-grandson Jack. He was ten months old. He couldn't pull himself up to a standing position. But he kept trying. Reaching up and holding onto a coffee table, he'd pull himself up so his bottom was a half inch off the floor - and fall back. He'd try again, get his bottom an inch off the floor - and fall back. He kept trying and failing until he moved on to try something else.

Watching Jack that day, marveling at him, deepened my understanding of the biblical message that only by returning to childhood can one mature in matters of the spirit and enter and experience heaven. However smart, able and accomplished we may be in the physical world and in society, only by accepting our ignorance, inability, failure, and incomprehension — only by child-like innocence, curiosity, and perseverance — can we most fully experience spiritual growth.

[See Matthew 18:3-5]

August 29, 2021

Pain is a part of life.  Pain is rarely invited: it is usually unwelcome and often dreaded.  But pain, including emotional pain — grief and heartache — is also a great and essential teacher.  Pain is a strict teacher, but if we will stay in class and pay attention, pain reminds us that any particular pain is only a small part of Life.  Pain instructs us not only in the need for self-care — for the sensible stewardship of the gift of Life — but also in the danger of self-pity and the importance of an outward perspective.  Pain enables us to understand others' pain; to grow in empathy and compassion for others; and to see the importance to ourselves of helping others and new ways to do so.