Sabbath

A gift: a day to go slowly, kids (and I) pottering in the park outside our back gate in pyjamas! No plans. No time pressures. Sabbath. Just what I needed, just what we all needed. God knew.

Thomas Merton wrote: “The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys his own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”

I need to remember to rest. To reconnect with the God of peace and wisdom. Else I become weary with the violence and frenzy in this world, and in me. Thank God for today’s slow, sleepy, pottering pace. It was needed.