Give it a Rest

I am weird.  I opened at my store today - that's 4am - and yet here I am out to coffee again at 8pm thanks to Ang who is doing bedtime solo tonight with Olivia (Thanks!).  There is something about drinking a hot cup of coffee, listening to music, and losing myself in thought.  As I relax and allow my mind the room to stretch out, my heart begins to be drawn into another world.  I wander off to a place as beautiful as the sun setting across a sky littered with mountains and trees.  The music is like a - well normally its a sweet sound but right now its Barbara Streisand - WHAT!  How is this playing right now?  Well Plan B good thing I have some Death Cab for Cutie (they are not nearly as weird as their name suggests) on my computer - that's more like it.  I feel like its a place where my heart can breathe. 

In our world quietness is going out of style, right alongside rest.  As we cram more into our days and lives we end up with less, we lose the depth that life offers.  In a place with no talking, where I am left alone with my thoughts I am slowly lead out to a place of peace, of solitude, of rest,  It is often in this place that I sense the words of the Father gently penetrating my heart.  Loving, tender, honest words -the kind that resonate deep within and leave me changed, undone.  I feel like this when I have my flyfishing gear and I am out in the middle of a river, serenaded by the rushing water, so loud it blocks out every other noise.  The river's roar silences the noise in my life in a strange way - freeing me to enjoy the structured cadence of my casting and the way the fly slowly drifts onto the water.  When I fish, its rarely about the fish, its more often about the way that fishing quiets my insides, stills my soul, and molds my perspective into that of my Maker.   

Rest is critical because it creates space in our lives.  We are all too comfortable with no space, no time, no breathing room.  We live on the proverbial hamster wheel and seem all too at home there, running at breakneck speed through our life until something intervenes and forces us to stop.  I see it everyday at work- the stress, the frenetic frenzied frantic pace of peoples' days and I am no different, but it does make me wonder - for what?  For what purpose are we so consumed with activities?  What are we afraid of missing out on?  What are we afraid of seeing in ourselves if we take the time to stop and look?  Certain types of poetry and music function most precisely when natural rests are built in, breathing points, places to stop and allow truth, or beauty, or wonder to set in.  God rested in the midst of Creation.  Why can't I stop and rest?

 If some things are more beautiful with space, with breaks, with rest then I wonder if my life would be richer and more beautiful with a bit of the same medicine.  Maybe that's the way it was designed to be - I think I will give that a shot.