Caught Up in God

Out on a two-lane highway, Sister Elizabeth and I caught a glimpse of a sign that made us do a double-take. It was on the edge of a cemetery, a country churchyard, and on both sides it proclaimed the same message to passersby and the graves round about:

NOTHING IS AS
TIRESOME
AS DOING NOTHINGHad the cemetery residents been led astray when they were encouraged to rest in peace? I was reminded of a parent prodding slothful offspring who were blissfully dozing away a summer morning.A 19th century immigrant, Francis Grund, had this to say about Americans: “There is, probably, no people on earth with whom business constitutes pleasure, and industry amusement, in an equal degree with the inhabitants of the Unites States of America. Active occupation is not only the principal sources of their happiness, and the foundation of their national greatness, but they are absolutely wretched without it, and instead of the ‘dolce far niente,’ know but the horrors of idleness” (Francis J. Grund, The Americans in Their Moral, Social and Political Relations, 1837).While it is true that we are created to need meaningful activity, we are also made to need times of doing nothing — resting in peace, not as dead, but alive in God. If our daily work is intended to reflect the work of the Creator, then we are to rest, according to the Ten Commandments and Genesis 2:2-3, because God rested on the seventh day of creation. God’s way of being is always the wellspring for our own.What is rest? It is not just the absence of activity. Rest is knowing that God is Creator, and that God rests. Rest is taking time to be alone with the One who loves us completely and unconditionally. Rest is freedom not only from work, but from all that fatigues: from fear, from guilt, from trying to be God. Rest is being enfolded in the arms of my heavenly Father/Mother who will help me pick up the pieces of my mistakes, because I am too small to do it all by myself. Rest is being assured that in spite of sin, as Julian of Norwich hears Jesus say, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
(Matthew 11:28-30)