rest, redefined?

It's a funny thing.  You'd think with all this resting, the place would be going to pot.  But my house is in order (as much as it ever is) and the flowerbeds have never looked better (which, I caution you, is not saying much).

I keep putting myself on one of those porch rockers to gaze at the trees and the sky, watch the birds and the cats and the boy, air out my thoughts and watch hopefully for cars slowing down to pull in our driveway and ask for a kitten (per our sign:  KITTENS:  free to a good home).

And I keep jumping up to do things.

The other day, for instance, I swept the driveway.  (And hold your "big deal" - we have probably 3500 square feet of driveway - or cries of "OCD" - the driveway is under the canopy of no less than three 60-feet tall mature nut trees & is the constant recipient of twigs, tree flowers, leaves, and nuts, making our driveway less than hospitable to the bare feet that frequent it).

I was going to enumerate the other things I've jumped up to do, but realized that that was borderline ridiculous, because it would no doubt look like an abysmally small list to some of you.  Suffice it to say, not as much resting is occurring as I thought might.

However, I seem to be making some headway when it comes to banishing "should."  So when I swept the driveway, it wasn't because I looked at all the debris and thought (as I normally would have), "I should sweep that driveway."  [insert sigh].

Instead, I was sitting on my rocker, drinking in the colors of summer along with some deliciously unseasonable cool air, saw the driveway, and thought to myself, "You know, I could sweep that.  It would look nice swept clean....."

So, progress.

Also unusual was another day this week, in which I was with company morning, afternoon, and evening.  And if that doesn't strike you as anything unusual, you don't know me very well.  I spread out my doses of social verrrrry carefully.  I love my people, and I love my spaces in between my people.

But this particular day I had three doses of very different people, including some little people (which usually threatens my sanity), and I somehow maintained both composure and calm.  I even enjoyed it - all three times!

I do believe that this is evidence of God working His Sabbath into me.  (and this, from a not very "thus saith the Lord" kind of girl!)

Seeing this breathes life into me.  I will continue to seek God through rest.

    ...
    ...
    ...

And somewhere down deep, the seed of hope begins to swell with life ....

a horizon

[written one Sunday afternoon in June...]

I've never been sure enough of myself and my impressions to be a “thus saith the Lord” kind of girl, but in the past few months I've felt a sort of divine invitation to “come away for awhile and rest.” As you might imagine, this is a smidge on the tricky side for a stay-at-home mom of four (who also has sole responsibility for their schooling).

But gradually, it's happening. With the counsel of my Farmer, I've been reviewing my commitments and slowly but surely releasing myself from them.

Not surprisingly, my social sphere limited as it is by my current vocation, most of my commitments were at church.

I wrote to the prayer ministry coordinator and asked that I (and my Farmer) be removed from the after-church prayer schedule. We found substitutes for Sugar in the church nursery. I told our moms' group's leader that I wouldn't be available next year to help plan the schedule, call speakers, maintain the blog, pray before meetings, or do the secretarial work.  I let the co-leader of the Sonshine Girls know that I would be taking a sabbatical from non-family responsibilities.  

We broke it gently to the children that we may not be participating in church clubs next year.  The gentleness turned out to be unnecessary – they are far less attached to these activities than we think; it is their relationships with family and close friends that matter most to them, and the way they see it, this will give them more time with both! 

Those were all things that I loved. In the past, I have accepted positions for wrong reasons: someone told me I'd be good at it, I wanted to see what it would be like, or the worn-out old “they need someone to fill it.” I learned that lesson the hard way several years ago when, juggling too many responsibilities, I heard my young daughter ask wistfully as I slung my purse over my shoulder and grabbed the car keys, “Are you going to another meeting?”

I want to be present for my family.

Flashback to my childhood: my father, the younger of two bi-vocational pastors at a small country church, spent what seemed like many evenings away from us taking care of church business, and while home, many hours ensconced in his study, working on church business. In case you're not familiar with bi-vocational pastorates, it means that he worked full-time as an electrical engineer during the week, and divided his free time between church and home responsibilities.

He took this on the year I turned one, and was still pastoring there when I left home after high school for a mission assignment.  That's nearly two decades of meetings.

[caveat: I was a child, seeing my dad through a child's eyes. I don't know what his hours actually were, and there are photos to prove that he also played with us. I remember him reading the Little House books to us, and later, the Chronicles of Narnia. His study door was closed, I believe, but I always knew I was welcome to come ask for a sip of his coffee or help with a broken doll, to share a contraband kitten, to settle a disagreement between my siblings, or get an opinion on a book.  I did feel cherished by him - I just would have liked him to be there more often.  This post is not about his choices - which I honor - but about mine.]

I recognize that I don't have a whole lot of control over what my children remember of their childhood, and of me – our memories are extremely selective, and unreliable. But I do have some say in the matter, and I didn't want them to remember me running off to committee meetings, so I freed myself as soon as I could from as much as I could.

But that was several years ago. Why am I disengaging now??  Everything I was involved in, I loved doing. 

The problem is, my margin had disappeared.

No book on the market will print lines out to the edge of the page – you couldn't read it. The margin helps you to make sense of what's written. In music, there's the rest. In art, negative space to set off the focal point.

In life we need margin, too. Going non-stop leaves no time to reflect, no time to weigh decisions. Without margin we react instead of responding.

And being more reflective than some (go ahead, ring the "introvert" bell), I need more margin – more space in which to think about my life, and the life my Farmer and I are building for our family.  I want to have time to feed on God's word rather than merely read it.  I want to have time to watch my children instead of just keeping an ear out for cries of distress.

Every mother of us has been admonished by some well-meaning older woman (usually while we're juggling a baby, a toddler and a diaper bag, at least), "Enjoy them while they're young!"  Well, I can't seem to enjoy them, really, when I don't even have time to observe them.  And over a decade into this parenting thing, I can see that time does fly, and the only way I can slow it down is by slowing down.

So we're taking a sabbatical. 

 For the rest of the summer (and possibly longer), we'll be free from our usual commitments (although my Farmer will continue to serve out the remaining months of his term on the church board). Unentangled, we'll see what happens to us.

One thing that I've been challenging myself with is doing nothing.  “Do nothing all day. Then, rest from it.” reads a quote in my purse notebook, written months ago when a friend prescribed it to me. To my surprise and disappointment, doing nothing is difficult for me!

Especially inside.

Have you ever (and you have my permission to think waaaaay back to your childhood summers) sat outside and gazed at the clouds, or the trees above you, or into the flames of a campfire, or at far-away hills and just let your mind roam? Peaceful, isn't it? Calming and oddly refreshing, too.

Now try to do that in your living room.

The indoors is just not conducive to reflection. I see the cobwebs in the corners, or the toys that Nice left out, or the papers that need attending to. I think, not about eternity or the meaning of life, but what to make for supper, and whether I should return those calls now or wait till tomorrow.

So I'm happy to be outside today. Yes, this time with my laptop and something to say, but outside nonetheless.

In the past few weeks I've been learning the art of the porch rocker, the gaze toward the hills, letting the mind come out for an airing (interrupted by Lil' Snip's observations regarding sand, bugs, and new flowers in the flowerbed, true, but I take what I can get). I'm not good at it, yet, but I'm getting better, and I know one thing for sure: you've got to be outside if you want it to work at all (although a good view through a window will work in a pinch; I just haven't got any window views with adequately placed seating - yet!).

And the further you can see, the better. 

 Today I can see several miles (okay - two, maybe) across farms and fields to tree-covered hills that still exist, where the roads are not. I feel a breeze under this maple tree, and see puffy white clouds slowly spreading across a clear Caribbean-sea [colored] sky. Birds chirp (and occasionally sing) and the heat quivers over the cornfields. 

A blackbird bursts out of the wheat growing beside me.

A biker pedals by silently.

A white cabbage moth flutters through sunlight in contented commonness.

A vulture rides the wind,
gnats hover over the keyboard,
a jumbo jet thunders distantly overhead.

Swallows flit playfully past,
a breeze rustles the leaves of a line of walnut trees.

Horse-drawn Amish carriages (“buggies” to us locals) go at a slow Sunday walk, home from church or a visit.

“The health of the eye,” says Emerson, “demands a horizon.”

And so, I think, does the soul.

     --- < O > ---

And now, after an hour or so of reveling in the horizon and the birds and the artistically-leaning fencepost, it occurs to me that Quiet Time is halfway over, and my Farmer is probably sitting in the unimaginative living room eating ice cream, and that it would feel fine to leave my dappled shade now and join him.

And so I do, buoyed with plenty of horizon now, plenty of margin to frame the living.

my one goal for the summer

I just read about a momma who was feeling discouraged by all the mommy-bloggers who are sharing their goals for the summer.

Well, I can hardly stand for that, can I?

Especially when I just explained how into rest I'm going to be for this season of my life.

And even more especially when we're supposed to be encouraging one another, we Christians.

"Love does not boast ..."

So hear this, precious discouraged momma, just wanting some rest and receiving what looks like law instead:

When you get a moment to sit down and read something (which, okay, never happens.  So go ahead, put down what you're doing and take a moment anyway), flip through your Bible to the Gospels, and you will find Good News:

You'll find that Jesus doesn't offer how-to's on goal-setting or productivity or even efficiency.  When we are weary, he offers rest and refreshment, encouraging us to choose the "one thing needed" like his friend Mary did - to sit at his feet and listen to his words, to abide in his words.

Let this be your one, simple goal for the summer:  to sit at his feet, and listen.  

The dishes will get done, somehow, sometime.  The laundry will, too.  You'll manage to feed the family.  And the rest?  The Pinterest-worthy living room decor and the photo shoot matching outfits and the extracurriculars for the children and all the rest?  They're optional anyhow.

Take a few minutes at the start of your day - even if it's while spooning baby food into that sweet little mouth - to read (yes, even aloud!) some words of Jesus.

They are your true food.

They will nourish you for your tasks (and help you to discern which tasks to do, and which to let go) far better than facebook or shopping or even texting a friend.

Summer camp (or even VBS) for the children won't do it.  Moms' groups and swimming lessons and dance lessons and summer sports (all fine and dandy things) won't do it.  Hard as it is for me to admit this, even a vacation in the islands won't do it.  Nothing will nourish you, nothing will restore your spirit, like the minutes you spend sitting at Jesus' feet.

And, this:  it is okay to sometimes sit down and gaze at the distant trees, even when your work is not done.  Because let's face it, it's never going to be done, that work.  Never.  And you will wear yourself ragged and wretched trying to stay abreast of it all.  Just stop.  Let it go.  Sit down and watch your babies (however old they are) play.  Go outside and marvel (quietly, tiredly is okay) at something God has made.

Let it feed your spirit.

Choose the one thing, this summer, that is needful:  sit at Jesus' feet, and listen.

< < < - - O - - > > >

[and if you like sentimental rhymes, this poem - which I eventually memorized from seeing it so often - was on my mother's fridge growing up, printed on the faded front of a card.]

Priority

Take time to smell the lilacs

And feel the warm bright sun,

Take time to look at rainbows;

Don't wait till work is done:

There'll always be a cobweb,

Some finger marks or dust,

Weeds to pull, a lawn to mow,

And something gathering dust.

We must remember lilacs

Bloom just once a year,

And you can see a rainbow

Only when it's here.

~ by Shirley Harvey

rest & my raison d'être

Epiphany this morning:  all that stuff I've read about adrenal fatigue and what to do for it, what supplements to take, what tests to have done?  Possibly all I need to do is Learn. To. Rest.

As in, "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."

And, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled and about many things, but only one thing [sitting at his feet and listening to Him] is needed."

I used to get annoyed when I worked at a doctors' office and people would call in to make an appointment for their child who was sick, wanting medication so the sick child could still play in their basketball game that night.  I would rage in my head (while politely making their appointment for them) that they should LET THAT SICK KID REST, ALREADY!!!

Now who's caught the busy-sickness?!

Another morning epiphany (see, my Monday has been "productive" already!!):  my reason for being is to observe, and then help others see.  God didn't make me to be primarily a doer.  He gave me eyes to see what not everyone can see, and a desire and ability to communicate what I see.

And [surprised and humbled] - my observations bless people!  Show them God.  Give them hope.

I guess the two insights had to hit at the same time.  I've had people affirm me in my communication ability before, but I've always felt lazy not being a Doer, since observing feels like inactivity.  But this morning I felt like I just needed to take some time before my day's work swallowed me up, to just sit outside with my coffee.  No book, not even the Bible, and just take it all in.  Sunshine, birds singing, children squabbling.... ;)

And while I was doing just that, I remembered a book that I greatly enjoyed - Hal Borland's "Hill Country Harvest" - which is basically one man's observations of the natural world around him.  It's an enormous pleasure to read, and (to pacify the practical side of me) highly instructive as well.  His observations are purely secular (or are they? this is God's handiwork he's admiring, after all ...), but it gives a legitimate pleasure nonetheless - helps me to slow down a bit, to SEE my world better.

That's what I think God put me on this earth to do.  I have no idea how (or when) my observations of life will be shared (I suppose this blog could be a start) - and maybe they'll never reach more than just a handful of people.

It doesn't really matter.  I feel settled now, somehow.  I know what I'm here for!

Then, epiphanies in hand, I went out and weeded.  :)

And then I got sweaty, and my allergy rash got worse, and I started sneezing and came inside.  :)

"... a time to rest ...."

church

This past week some of us were sick, and around here we treat sickness with (among other things) rest.  By Saturday we were feeling a lot better, but more rest seemed to be in order.

As much as we love our church family, going to church is not always restful, so last night my Farmer and I decided that our family would hold services at home today.  (And although we don't operate by democratic vote, we did ask the girls, individually, for their opinions.  Sugar, Spice, and Nice each said, hopefully, that they thought they'd like having church at home).

So after the breakfast dishes were cleared away this morning, the cats and chickens fed, we gathered by the piano to sing "Joy to the World" to Sugar's accompaniment, with Spice playing along on the lap harp.  That's the extent of their accompaniment abilities at present, so we moved to the kitchen table with our hymnals and sang "Blessed Be The Tie That Binds" and "The Servant Song" and "How Great Thou Art" and a few more, till our voices ran dry.

Lil' Snip was provided with Legos and a couple of Golden Books, and the rest of us pulled out our Bibles.  Spice volunteered to take notes.  Since we were "being church", we wanted to see what the Bible had to say about it.

Sugar remembered reading Hebrews 10:24 & 25 the other day, so we started there:

"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

We added to that Hebrews 3:13, which reminds us that we are to encourage each other daily to keep ourselves from being hardened by sin's deceitfulness.  From this, we decided that "meeting together" must mean something other than only Sunday morning church meetings, if we're to be encouraging one another every day.  Might it mean simply that we keep company with other believers on a daily basis?

We talked about how spending time with people regularly helps you to know them better, and then your encouragement can be more specific, and probably more beneficial.  That "spurring one another on toward love and good deeds" might take the form of giving vision to each other of what could be, something to move toward, like a mule moving toward the carrot dangling in front of him, getting the hard work of plowing done because his eyes are on the prize.

Sugar read 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 for us.  We decided that Paul's point was for us to wait for each other, share with each other, don't be greedy, and don't be divided.  We turned to 1 Corinthians 14:26-40 to see again that we should be orderly and take turns, that everyone has a part (see also 1 Corinthians 12:12-31), and all are needed.  Singing would be part of a meeting, Paul assumed, and teaching, prophesying, and speaking in tongues (but only as long as there was an interpretation).  We confronted those troublesome verses about women and their role in church services, reading the study notes in the Bible and talking about our own experiences.

Time was flying by, so we only looked at one more passage:  Colossians 3:12-17, which doesn't tell us what to do at meetings, but how to live with each other.  We should be peaceful, thankful, forgiving, teaching & admonishing one another.

Another hymn, a break for tea and graham crackers, and the children began to disperse.  It had been an hour and a half.  (I should blush to say it, maybe, but I don't remember our family ever sitting down together for that length of time before for anything, let alone to study the Bible together.  Our evening "family time" which does include singing and Bible reading is usually only 20 minutes, max.)

"That was nice!  The time went fast!!"  Spice said happily.  "It felt more like church, somehow."

"It was more restful," agreed Nice.  "We didn't have to hurry and get ready in the morning, and then hurry to make lunch when we got home."

Staying home, in fact, gave me ample time to make a simple - but hot! - lunch of rice and chicken, a nice improvement over our usual PB&J.  We ate early, comfortably instead of ravenously.  Going to church somehow always works up in us a terrific appetite.

After lunch, Sugar, Spice, Nice & Lil' Snip changed into playclothes, put on their snowsuits and headed out to play in the snow, a motley crew of colorfully padded roly-polies.  They're out there now, scooping up the fluffy stuff and kicking it, making piles and messages and occasionally flinging it at each other, while my Farmer and I relax a bit before calling them in for afternoon Quiet Time.

I don't know when I've enjoyed a Sunday more.

                  - - - - -   < * >   - - - - -

Do you know of other passages about Christians meeting together?  I'd like to hear them ...

"wasted" morning

So, it's a little after eleven a.m. and I'm looking about, laptop warming my knees, wondering what I have to show for my morning.

At first glance, not much.

It took me most of the morning to make my grocery list, thanks to getting breakfast into my son and playing TinkerToys and plunging the toilet and bantering with friends on facebook and demonstrating touch-typing without looking at the keyboard for my dubious daughters and catching up on a cousin's blog and adjusting the food processor for the bread-crumb-maker and doing a ponytail and giving emotional counsel ... and of course, my own natural distractedness.

Unseen, though, is the necessary-to-the-introvert recovery from a lovely and very social day yesterday, when my favorite little Sister came with her three little ones.  We loved being with them, and now today we are regaining our equilibrium.  Like it or not, convenient or not, on the to-do list or not, this is as vital to us as sleep and whole food.

And so we "waste" the morning.

Ahhhh ..... that's better.

in quietness

"... in quietness and trust is your strength ..."  Isaiah 30:15

The children are at Grandma's this weekend.

My Farmer and I are rediscovering some elemental luxuries.  We've completed whole sentences.  We've stayed out after bedtime.  We've been noisy and turned lights on after bedtime!  Slept till the sun & the birds woke us up.  Ate meals in the livingroom.  We've sat in the sun and let time tick by ... 

It's been grand.  I'm remembering, again, the importance of rest, and thought I'd share with you a post from the archives, called "de-throning the Protestant work ethic":

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The past few days should have been restful ones.  Outside of basic homemaking (cooking, laundry, overseeing chores and schoolwork) and a very small handful of "special projects", I have had a good bit of free time.  And, feeling I needed a rest (July was one scheduling crisis after another for this homebody), I spent most of that free time divided between my laptop and my Lazy Boy recliner.

When I occasionally surfaced from my books and my blog, I felt guilty.  I should be spring deep cleaning.  I should be weeding flowerbeds.  I should be taking my children on fun, educational day trips.  I should be freezing corn.  I should be canning peaches.  I should .....

I've been undermining my free time by underestimating its value.

Work is good.  If you never work, you can't truly enjoy leisure.  But leisure is good, too.  If you never rest, you can never truly enjoy your work.

I want to be able to enjoy both, so now that I'm fully rested (after a mind-clearing evening at the pottery studio last night, where I figured all this out), I think I'll go find some work to do.  Seems to me I saw some cobwebs somewhere recently ....

(and when I've finished with that, Frederick Beuchner's sermons beckon....)


[first posted August 2011]

beauty remains

I'd been saying for months that I needed a break, that I just needed life to stop a little and let me off.  After spending most of March either caring for sick children or being sick myself, it was more than time for some kind of respite.

Sugar, Spice, and I counted up our schooling days for the year and discovered that we only needed fifteen more, and had three months in which to fulfill them:  can you say "spring break?!?"

I could!

The girls wrote up proposals as to how they planned to use their hypothetical holiday.  The results were . . . entertaining.

Sugar's:

During the two-week spring break, I propose that we could keep doing typing, nothing else.  We would play outside, therefore doing nature study, seeing that flowers are blooming, and we would be furthermore occupied with playing with the cats.  The aforesaid playing with cats will also be useful towards our education; we will learn how they - cats - act, also about how to care efficiently for animals 

Another thing is this:  the spring break will be healthy for our bodies and our hearts because we will be exercising our hearts and muscles by riding bike and jumping on the trampoline. 

I suggest that you continue with the plans for a two-week spring break, seeing that it is approved on all sides.  I think that is is a most excellent plan, and I sincerely hope to see it put in use this spring.

Spice's:

Here is a list of things I might do during Spring vacation.  Your the best teacher I've ever had, since preschool. 

1) play with the cats
2) weed the daffodils
3) rake the leaves out of the flower beds
4) type
5) dig up the purple crocuses to transplant (with your permission)
6) sew (maybe)
7) write things
9) look for birds nests
10) pick flowers
11) bead
12) take books outside to read
13) take naps outside (only on warm days)
14) invite friends over
15) make candles 

So, I think two weeks of spring vacation is a very good idea!!

I submitted their proposals to the principal (my Farmer), who approved heartily, and we took a break:  two whole beautiful weeks of no [intentional] school, and lots of free play.  My mind relaxed, my body took itself outside, and my eyes were opened, again, to the beauty I'd forgotten existed.  It brought the deeper breaths, rejuvenating the jaded parts.

-----   : : : < O > : : :   -----

If you're a news junkie (which most people are without realizing it, just like sugar addiction), you've lately been feeding on a lot of tragedy and fear.  In light of that, it could feel almost indecent to offer beauty to you here.  However, whether our media chooses to feature them for us or not, hard things are happening to undeserving people around the world every day ... and yet the beauty also exists, and is undimmed.

I can focus on the fear .... or on the beauty.

I choose beauty.

a curious rest

Today it is quiet in my house.

After my Farmer laced up his work boots and drove off in the Box (our Scion xB), I sat a bit and thought about my day.

I could run errands.

I could lie on the hammock.

I could read.

Or, I could give that door to the garage another coat of paint.

Which I did, my paintbrush stilling my mind to give ear to a sermon on renewing the mind by Bill Johnson.  I wanted to hear more (and don't listen well without activity), so I painted the doorposts around another door, listening to the next sermon in the series.

I scrubbed the sink mats and the kitchen sink while listening to part three.  I washed the dishes to part four.

I drove out for more paint - red, this time, working up my courage for bold color.

Home, I contemplated.  Red - really?  What if I was wrong?  What if it was too much?

[what would my Farmer say?  I asked myself.  He would say - you can always paint over it.]

I dipped my brush into the red ("Wow, that's a lot of red!" the man at the hardware store had said, admiringly, as he added pigment to the can) and ran it along the window frame.  Bright!  I brushed down the side to the sound of Bill Johnson's voice:  part five.

I finished the frame and moved on to paint a door red.  Then doorposts to another door (we have a LOT of doors in our kitchen - nine, if you count empty doorways, too).  Part six.

I took a break to grill a sandwich.  I scraped a screen door (but need outdoor paint for that one) and looked at a new-to-me budget website.  Retired to the hammock to call my Farmer about supper plans.

My day is nearly over, now.

Somehow, despite the work I did, despite the listening, and listening, and listening ... I had a day of rest.  I am still inside - "I have stilled & quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me."  Psalm 131:2

Curious.  My mind feels renewed ...

today

The rain poured down, this morning.  I rescued a bucket of brand-new sidewalk chalk from the driveway after pondering the "natural consequences" theory of discipline and rejecting it in favor of not having wasted the five bucks I paid ... and because I like to use the chalk, too.

My tiny kitchen "sideboard" overflows with fruit from the grocery store and my Farmer's fields - peaches, asian pears, yellow & purple plums:  evidence of abundance.

A bouquet that Spice picked for me last night graces the table:  a handful of foxtails, and a spike of fiery red gladiola blossoms - her signature careless beauty.

Caterpillars in a glass gallon jar change slowly, unknowingly, into winged creatures.

A boy demands, insists, and learns to say "May I please?"  His hands know how to be gentle even as his feet clomp about in big sister's sneakers, his current preferred footwear.

Sugar french-knots her doll's name into fleece, making a pillow, proud of her artistry, her skill.

Paint-with-water pages litter the table, the counter, the fridge, like rabbits overbreeding.

The lights are on; the sky outside still dim.

Chores are done - schoolwork, too - early this time.  A new dry-erase board makes it mysteriously more fun.

The task in front of me, making out a list of food to buy, scatters with interruptions from children and from facebook.  I am permanently halfway done.  My own to-do list cowers by the fridge, intimidated by my lethargy.  Bake bread, it exhorts.  Make ice cream cake for Spice's birthday.  (I write a blog post instead.)

To be disciplined & do what needs to be done .... to know how to rest ... what is the agenda for today?

I try to listen.

gasping for breath

It's hot today.  Ninety degrees even, in the shade.  I haven't been in the sun since before lunch, and I have no intention of going there just to find out how hot it is.

The cats are melting on the porch.  Sensible, as always, cats.  Practical.  No guilt for not getting work done; they just nap when napping is clearly the most logical thing to do.

Unlike me.  I saw the forecast - two blistering hot days after a week of cool - and I decided I'd take two days off.  Just give myself permission to lay low until more humane temperatures returned.  No unnecessary cooking or baking or cleaning, just read and hang out and watch life go by.

The problem is, I feel guilty actually doing it.

I do "pretend" work instead - checking email and making lists and phone calls, redesigning homeschool log sheets and tidying up and "just sweeping the porch a little."

Ugh.  I can't rest.  Have I forgotten how?

Or, am I waiting for divine permission, somehow?








"Be still, and know that I am God."  (Psalm 46:10)

{This should be a longer post - resolved, somehow, with a tidy answer and a shout of victory at the end.  But I have neither answers nor victory, yet.  Just hope.  Patience.  That will have to do, for a start.}

on trying

"We read," as one of C.S. Lewis' students quoted his father in Shadowlands, "to know we're not alone."  And sometimes as we read, we discover our own fears put into words by another.


excerpted from Jan Karon's Home to Holly Springs

"He realized as he cowered by the fence that he had struggled for years to get it right - struggled to experience the joy, the peace, the sense of oneness with the One who was born for him, gave himself for him, and in so doing offered Timothy Kavanaugh the supernatural gift of eternal life.

"He genuinely believed in this One, had even been ordained as a priest in his service, and yet, in all the long years of his faith since childhood, he had never deeply, viscerally known the warmth and protection of the divinely unconditional, even tender love about which he had heard and read so much.  He had trembled to think he was a fraud."

I, too, want to get it right.  Sometimes it almost seems I might be getting close.  Sometimes it seems I never will.  Mostly it feels like I'm missing something.

I am tired.

The words "mid-life crisis" left my lips recently, and I was startled to find out that a few of my friends have had the same thought.  In my head I still feel about 23 (and on bad days, fourteen), but something has happened since then.  Well, fifteen somethings.  I guess I got old.

[Ugh.  So dramatic, I know.  I think as I write this of positive, energetic 60-somethings I know and I feel ashamed.  Pity party?  Maybe.  Or maybe just unvarnished disclosure.]


I want it all to count for something.  For Someone.  I don't want to have failed, but I'm not seeing success.  And frankly, I'm tired of trying.

Somewhere in here is grace, and the power of the One who raised Christ and who, inexplicably, lives in me.  Somehow I know I will find a way through, because He is my Shepherd and He guides me in paths of righteousness for His Name's sake.  If there have been green pastures or quiet waters lately, they've been (or they've felt, which I know are two very different things) few and far between.

Somewhere in here is rest.  And maybe, just maybe, it takes being tired to learn to rest.

fresh perspective

It doesn't take much to get my eyes off the ground.

a night out at the pottery studio
pizza made by friends' hands & baked outdoors in a clay oven
a suncatcher for me to paint, gift from my daughter
husband's hand on mine
children dropped off happy at Grandma & Grandpa's
us, let loose from schedules, lunching with newspapers spread
cheese from the Savory Gourmet
a drive through the park, looking for (and finding!) mushrooms
the "ahhhhh" of a quiet house
a great illustrated book on pottery techniques
nap on the livingroom floor
chocolate for tea, and mushroom leek cheese
the possibilities of two unplanned days


All these, consecutively, work wonders.  I pray God the days' refreshment will translate into something more lasting - patience, maybe? for the multitudes of wrinkle-makers sent for my refinement.

In the meantime, gratitude, deep and sweet.

Thank you, God above.  Thank you, potter friends.  Thank you, daughter of mine.  Thank you, "Ba."  Thank you, my Farmer, my hero, my friend.

Thank you, God above.

de-throning the Protestant work ethic

The past few days should have been restful ones.  Outside of basic homemaking (cooking, laundry, overseeing chores and schoolwork) and a very small handful of "special projects", I have had a good bit of free time.  And, feeling I needed a rest (July was one scheduling crisis after another for this homebody), I spent most of that free time divided between my laptop and my Lazy Boy recliner.

When I occasionally surfaced from my books and my blog, I felt guilty.  I should be spring deep cleaning.  I should be weeding flowerbeds.  I should be taking my children on fun, educational day trips.  I should be freezing corn.  I should be canning peaches.  I should .....

I've been undermining my free time by underestimating its value.

Work is good.  If you never work, you can't truly enjoy leisure.  But leisure is good, too.  If you never rest, you can never truly enjoy your work.

I want to be able to enjoy both, so now that I'm fully rested (after a mind-clearing evening at the pottery studio last night, where I figured all this out), I think I'll go find some work to do.  Seems to me I saw some cobwebs somewhere recently ....

(and when I've finished with that, Frederick Beuchner's sermons beckon....)