Rest
The Skill of True Rest & Re-creation
True rest is a contemplative skill. This week, we nurture that skill with the practices of rest and play.
One of the most beautiful things about the contemplative tradition is that it is an invitation to prophetically push back against the predominant narrative of our culture — the constant pressure to hustle, to succeed, to acquire; the embedded anxiety that we are not enough and never will be. The ways we hustle are usually tied to something in our own story: a fear, an attachment held tightly deep in the soul. The foundational work of this course is meant to give God access to those places, for healing.
The center of the work of God in our lives is the work of His healing and purifying love, which slowly pushes out all that is not reflecting the image of God in our life. And one of the ways God has set up for us to partner with Him in this work is in the practice of rest and Sabbath.
Why does rest do this work? Draw on Gregory of Nyssa’s image of a wax seal: in ancient times a letter was signed by pressing a carved seal into hot wax, and the wax bore the seal’s imprint. We are the wax; God is the seal. We bear the imprint of God’s image — or as Athanasius put it, “we are becoming by grace what God already is by nature.” And God is a God who rests: the climax of creation is the seventh day. So a regular practice of rest is simply a partnership with who God already is and who God is making you into — someone who can rest.
Sabbath, then, is a prophetic act of resistance against a world that forms us to love the wrong things. It is also a recovery of play — walks, a hobby, Russian literature or comic books — relearning to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation.
- Skill True rest as a contemplative skill.
- Practice Rest & play.
- Outcome To be able to identify what rest and re-creation looks like for me in the context of my weekly life — and what it does for my life with God and others.
This week, use your previous worksheets, journaling and recollection to identify activities that are restful and re-creative for you. Ask yourself, “How do I feel invited to rest / play / sabbath?”
Design a dedicated (“sacred”) time of rest / play for yourself — within the constraints of your life as it is — whether a full day of play, a weekend quiet retreat or just an afternoon in a park. Then, do it. Follow through on your plan as much as life allows you, without judging whether you did it “right.”
Spend time this week with the image of being “stamped” as hot wax. Ask God to speak to you about the ways God has made you to bear God’s image in the world.
- What does restfulness look like for you? How do you experience it — in your body and in your interior world?
- How can you tell whether something was truly restful for you?
- What was your experience in your designed time of rest this week? What came up for you?
- Where did you notice any resistance or friction?
- What would you like to try as a practice of rest going forward?
Going deeper A companion synthesis on rest — gathered from Jesus, Thomas Merton, and Richard Rohr, with a menu of methods for stopping — lives at On Rest →