Monday Morning Musing: For the Rest of us

Last week I took three days off from my work and I mostly kept that time as what it was intended to be....rest and renwal. The timing was more about convenience in scheduling than anything: in an effort not to leave vacation days on the table, and with my calendar in hand, I realized that I was going to need to use some of those days whenever my schedule allowed.

"Where are you going?" was the question my dear parishioners asked when they heard I was taking some vacation time. "Nowhere and everywhere" was my answer, which was code for "wherever I decide I want to go." That included back to bed on the first morning of this little staycation. After getting up, getting coffee, and grabbing the book I was reading I snuggled back in to finish both the coffee and the book. (It was Ina Garten's memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens; it was delightful.) We also welcomed our grandgirl for a sleepover and we got things ready for a baby sprinkle for her brother, due to arrive in late January. Bliss.

Rest....time away from our regular rhythms is important. Our bodies and our spirits need it in the same way we need water and food and love.

I usually include a photo at the end of these posts, but for this day I'm offering you a photo here, in the middle of our time together:

This image comes from the lens and heart of my Beloved. He took it from our SoCal hotel room window a couple of years ago. In the literal shadow of palm trees, a man has laid his bike down to rest. Beyond him, behind the fence, traffic goes on as usual, life goes on as usual, but for this moment he has decided to just stop. rest. renew.

I don't do this nearly often enough, do you? And we don't have to take three days of intentional vacation time to do it. We can learn from bicycle guy here, and just stop our pedaling and lay it all down. Lay down our burdens, lay down our troubles, lay down our busy-busy-busy. Lay it down and find some shade or some sun or crawl back under the covers.

It's ironic that this is the season that will not invite us to rest. Instead, it will invite us to go-go-go and do-do-do. As much as I love this time of year, and I do, I'm going to look for the places to rest wherever I can find them. I hope you'll find space to do the same. It will be good for us.

Here is a new-to-me poem by poet Sarah Harvey:

Stop it.

Stop running around like that, you beautiful soul.

Stop pushing yourself past the point of utter exhaustion.

Stop blatantly ignoring what your body is telling you.

Stop being everything to everyone else; but no one to yourself.

Stop trying to do it all. And have it all. And be it all.

Stop.

Get off the hamster wheel of to-do lists and events you “should” attend, people you “should” call, things you “should” do, and achievements and expectations and worries.

Oh, sweet soul—when is the last time you took a full breath, a break?

Aren’t your lungs just dying for the sweet, spacious nectar of oxygen?

Aren’t your muscles weary, sore, tense—begging for silent release?

You can rest. You can set it all down.

Yes, you sweet soul—you do so much, you do too much—and I promise the world can go on without you for a moment, an hour, a day, a weekend.

It will have to.

Set it all down. Set everything down.

That load you’ve been carrying is heavy, the crushing weight you bare on your shoulders alone. You’re so strong to carry it so bravely. But you can’t carry it all the time. And you need not carry it all on your own.

Let go all the brittle pieces of everything you’ve been holding tightly together—

I know it hurts.

So let it go.

Let those exhausting pieces fly to the breeze, to the grass, to the trees, let them spread into the air like seeds.

You heart needs you. Your soul cries out for you.

Reach inside.

Hear the ruby whispers from deep within. Meet yourself in the misty places that speak softly.

Set it all down. Set everything down.

You can rest.

You have complete and utter permission to rest—oh, you always do—

To savor.

To lick the sapphire blue sky.

To climb an invisible rope to the stars.

To close your eyes and weep rivers, if you need to.

To daydream.

To create.

To expand and grow.

To do absolutely nothing.

To laugh and play.

To be alone.

You have permission—but hell, it’s more than permission—it’s about fiercely meeting your needs.

It’s about giving yourself what you give to everyone else all the time—

Love. Gentleness. Healing. The tender space to blossom.

So, give yourself what you give to everyone else.

Oh sweet soul, unwrap a thousand flower petal drops of softness and hand it to your own heart.

You can rest.

So stop it.

Stop trying to be everything to everyone.

Be everything to yourself instead.

Be all you ever needed.

Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Replenish that pulsating well of great thirst inside you, melt into the warm arms of this moment like golden honey

And just be.

You don’t need to do more or be more.

Doing more isn’t always helpful or necessary—doing less is sometimes the golden ticket we’d never consider.

Set it all down. Set everything down.

And just be.

You are not lazy, you are wise.

Be extraordinarily gentle with yourself.

And see how that gentleness feeds you.

Exist sweetly in the wild palms of silence, like a sunbeam, shining in the divine dappled beauty of all you are.

Unfold whimsically into simplicity, into the glistening truth of it all—the glistening truth of who you really are.

Rest. Replenish.

Surrender, sweet soul, surrender.

Claim this moment, just for you.

It’s just for you.

Perch here.

Close your eyes.

There is nothing you need to do.

Just breathe.

Just.

Be.