What Does Rest Look Like?

What Does Rest Look Like? July 29, 2014

Comment held a symposium, asking writers how they are working at rest this summer. It’s worth reading. For instance, here’s Norman Wirzba:

The opposite of rest is not activity but restlessness. That is, I need to rest so I can calm down and discern how the world around me is a place of so much beauty and grace. When I am restless, that usually means that I am unhappy with my life or my situation, wishing I had a better job, a nicer house, or friends who couldn’t stop praising me. Restlessness keeps me on the frantic move, constantly searching for what will finally establish me as the god of my world. Being frantic and ungrateful keeps me from sensing and appreciating where I am.

I think a better way to describe rest is to say that it is the time and the action in which gratitude and praise become inevitable. Rather than being a withdrawal from the world, rest represents a deep appreciation and immersion into the world as a place where so much good is at work and is yet possible. I rest best when I know that the people I am with are in a good personal place, and when the work I do is producing some good.

Read the whole thing here.


Browse Our Archives