Floods. Hurricanes. Fires. If we are depending on externals, then these are stressful times. The good news is that it is possible to have compassion for others in bad times while keeping our peace, even enjoying rest, if only we were saints. We are not saints, of course, and sometimes that quick inner humility turns into an excuse not to become better than we are.
We might never enter the perfect rest about which great sages speak, but we can lower our stress, worry less, and find greater rest. How?
Fo
rget a three day weekend, we need a perpetual weekend. We need it inside where hurricanes do not happen, where narcissistic politicians or bosses cannot shout, and wealth is not determined by bank accounts. This inner place where we hear the voice of God, the reason within our reason, is untouchable. The seat of our consciousness cannot be explained away by science, measured, or quantified. God is, the great I Am, and we can be, because He is.
Rest is Prepared for the People of God
There is a place where refuge can be found in storms, not just a perpetual weekend, but endless Sunday with no Monday coming.* That’s splendid, but it requires a hard bit of work for an American. We have to ignore the messages of thousands of hours of commercials and know that stuff cannot make us happy, money is not sweet, and even our relationships with each other are dangerous to our happiness.
We can (and should) enjoy stuff, making money can be helpful, and relationships with other people can be jolly and beautiful, but only if they are not providing what they cannot give. They are too fragile to be the ground of our happiness and so we will never (quite) rest out of fear if we put our full trust in them.
A very wise man, Maximos the Confessor, said this:
Saint Basil makes this clear in his commentary on the prophet Isaiah, when he says: “True Sabbaths are the rest prepared for the people of God [see Hebrews 4:9], and God can bear them [see Isaiah 1:13] because they are true. These Sabbaths of rest are attained by the person in whom the world has been crucified [see Galatians 6:14], for he has moved away from earthly things, and has arrived at his own place of spiritual rest. Whoever finds himself in such a place will never be moved from it, for it is his own, and characterized by tranquility and imperturbability.”* God is thus the “place” for all those deemed worthy of such blessedness, just as it is written: Be Thou to me a protecting God, and a strong place to save me [Psalm 70:3].**
What this Means for You Today
We have immediate access to this place of blessedness (happiness). It never fills up, and nobody is turned away. However, we must crucify the world to find the key to that place and that sounds harsh. We are happy to find rest, but why such a harsh door? Why must we nail our desire for money, power, and fame to a cross? We must, because they are pretty good. We will enjoy them later, but to our foolish minds, they seem enough. The very goodness of these external pleasures, especially if we get some early, dull us, make us complacent.
We become like those who go to the grocery store for the storm after the media has announced the crisis. We want bread, but there is no bread. We have taken bread for granted. Instead, we should have prepared by getting bread that no storm could touch and living water immediately available to everyone without lines or price gouging.
We crucify the world and gain rest and then all these good things can be given to us because they will never be tricksy. What had been an idol, a substitute for real happiness, becomes an icon, an outer sign of an inner reality. We have peace and also enjoy the good things God has made. When troubles come, and they will come this side of death, then it is still well with our inner self. We rest in turmoil.
We aren’t going to get to this discipline of the mind tomorrow. We may not get to it until after death, but we can begin. Today I turn to the inner place, the secret place, by crucifying my desires and finding rest.
Lord Jesus Christ have mercy!
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*Nothing is so good humans cannot mess it up. God protected the poor eternally by mandating a day of rest. Humans turned that into unpleasantness. Think of the “Sabbath” of Laura Ingalls Wilder when playing and merrymaking were forbidden. We should worship God on the day of rest, but we should also rest, play, and recreate.
**Translator’s Note: St Basil of Caesarea, Commentary on Isaiah, 1:30
On Difficulties in the Church Fathers, Vol. 1 (The Ambigua) p 99, Note p 481
Rachel Motte edited this essay and added the sub-headings.
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