Reflections
Rest & Reflection: Is It Optional?
I admit it. I really don’t care for winters, even the relatively mild ones we have here in Virginia. The combination of colder weather and short days wears on me. I’m quite certain this has been exacerbated by having spent most of my life in an industry that tends toward negative cash flow during the winter months and the accompanying stress associated with that!
For the past six years, on the recommendation of my doctor and counselor, we have been taking a trip south to warmer and sunnier climes during the month of January. I can’t say that it’s been stress-inducing. In fact, I’ve come to anticipate it every winter. To break, even briefly, into a world of warm sunshine and palm trees has been good for body and soul. Our recent trip south was no exception.
I need to admit as well that I’ve been a bit of a workaholic during much of my life. The adrenaline rush from dashing from one thing to the next and juggling fast to keep ten balls in the air was exhilarating for a season of my life. And then suddenly it wasn’t. It was just exhausting. And during that season of deep fatigue that required a long season of rest, I began to value the twin gifts of rest and reflection.
I’ve embraced the theory that a rested state is important to reflection and that reflection is one of the primary pathways to wisdom. During the early seasons of life, men in particular become deeply immersed in the battle of life: fighting to find our own place in the world, to contribute to the advance of a kingdom (ours or God’s), and to steward the gifts and abilities that we discover have been entrusted to us. This is noble. It’s what we are created to do – work to bring order into chaos and to expand fruitfulness into the wilderness. We work at serving and keeping, guarding and cultivating. But we take some hits along the way, and suddenly we find ourselves in mid-life, licking a few wounds.
Rest is a gift from God, to be received as such. As we get older, we require more rest in order to be effective in the work we engage in. It’s from a place of rest that we are able to open our eyes to the greater purpose for which we live and work. Without rested reflection, we easily get stuck on the treadmill of futility. In stepping off that treadmill, we are actually able to look at the treadmill and reevaluate our own activity and its contribution to the purposes of God. From this perspective, ideally we will have the courage to make adjustments that allow realignment of ourselves and our activities with the purposes of God, for us and the world in which we live.
Our recent travels to the warmer, sunny climes took us to places where Rosa, my bride of thirty-six years, spent significant time as a child. We found the house her father had built and another home where her memories included being able to watch airplanes land and take off at the airport down in the valley. At one property, the current residents invited in for a grand tour of the house and then to share coffee at the kitchen table with them. At the other property, we sat at the counter of a small café overlooking the home site and watched airplanes taking off and landing at the airport. We went to this spot three times.
These kinds of experiences are worth an investment of time and money. I had often heard Rosa talk about these places, but she had not been back for nearly fifty years. To share these unhurried moments together gave me a fresh window into some very formative years of her life and evoked vivid memories for her. I recommend making these sorts of things a priority.
Another part of this trip was spending four days beside the Pacific Ocean in a small house where we had nothing to do except hear (and watch) the waves crashing on the beach, walk into the village for groceries or meals, and then in the evening observe the slow but steady drop of the sun below the horizon. Rest. Reflection.
From a place of rest and reflection comes renewed clarity about life. What matters? What doesn’t? What might be important to finishing life well? What might need to be abandoned in order to focus on the truly important? And maybe even more importantly, unhurried shared time with the one to whom you’ve made a life-long commitment. There will be the inevitable “hard conversation,” but there will also be opportunities, partially due to the unrushed time, to gain new appreciation and new understandings that will undergird a stronger relationship for the future. And a place of rest with intentional space for reflection opens the heart and mind for the dawning of wisdom.
I recommend it.
One comment on “Rest & Reflection: Is It Optional?”
Good morning Steve,
I enjoyed reading your "Rest and Reflection". I am a deacon in a conservative Anabaptist church in Northwestern, PA. How do I know how often to rest and reflect. I enjoy trout fishing in our many trout streams in PA. I find it relaxing and enjoyable (even when I don't catch any) How much is too much? At what point is one being selfish??? Do you have any pointers?