From the Pastor - August 2017

Whatever happened to the lazy days of summer?  Life can be harried year-round if you're constantly rushing around and always trying to catch up. 

Do you feel the pressure of a busy schedule, constant deadlines, and never-ending to-do lists?  Pico Iyer describes the predicament:  

“We’ve lost our Sundays, our weekends, and our nights off — our holy days, as some would have it; our bosses, our email, our parents can find us wherever we are, at any time of day or night.  More and more of us feel like emergency-room physicians, permanently on call, required to heal ourselves but unable to find the prescription for all the clutter on our desk.”¹

We just aren’t built to sustain a highly stressful life.  Being busy all the time can undermine our health.  Slowing down is critical for our well-being.  We need downtime and rest.

The solution, according to Deborah Caldwell, is to do “nothing” on purpose as often as possible.  She says:

“You’ll feel your body relax.  You’ll feel more connected with the center of your being.  You’ll think clearer, sleep better, and feel energized.  Your cortisol levels will return to normal.”²

I would connect this advice to a spiritual source.  After six days of creating, God rested on the seventh day and gave us the Sabbath to keep.  The psalmist even describes Jerusalem as God’s “resting place.”³ 

It’s refreshing to think of God having a resting place because we often describe God as being always active.

However, Brother Geoffrey Tristram, SSJE, suggests that there is “a profound stillness at the heart of God.”⁴  If we want to know the God who rests and has a resting place, then we need a resting place of our own so that we can rest.  Only then can we experience the gift of stillness.  As the psalmist says: “Be still and know that I am God.”⁵ 

We are created to have a deep connection with God.  As St. Augustine puts it: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in you.”⁶

In a culture of excessive activity, we need a resting place, says Br. Geoffrey, a place to be still, a place to listen to the heartbeat of God and to hear that Great Heart speaking to our heart.⁷

How often do you schedule some downtime or just sit still?  When do you rest?

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Dr. Brian C. Smith

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¹ Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (London: TED Books, 2014), 6.

² Deborah Caldwell. "Stillness and Rest: An Essential Part of Health." The Huffington Post. January 28, 2017. Accessed July 11, 2017. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-deborah-caldwell/stillness-and-rest-an-essential-part-of-health_b_9093048.html.

³ Psalm 132:14, NRSV.

⁴ Geoffrey Tristram. "Cor ad cor loquitur." SSJE. February 9, 2012. Accessed July 11, 2017. http://ssje.org/ssje/2012/02/09/cor-ad-cor-loquitur-br-geoffrey-tristram/.

⁵ Psalm 46:10, NRSV.

⁶ Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick, Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 3. 

⁷ Tristram, Ibid.