On finding rest

What happens when we take a break from the never-ending to-do list?

Dear Friend,

The reading material on my nightstand might tell you something about what’s been on my mind lately. Judging from conversations and writing from friends in my circle, I’m guessing it’s on a lot of our minds as we head into 2022: REST.

Coming up on two full years of pandemic living, so many of us are just so tired. You, too?

I’m learning that for me, it’s more than pandemic fatigue. A deeper tiredness has been revealed in me through the difficulties of pandemic living. Slowly, I’ve been peeling back the layers of a weariness that’s been with me since I was small. It’s the fatigue that comes from trying hard all the time. From the constant need to do more and do better. From producing, achieving, and basically to-do-ing myself to death. This is a burden I’ve been carrying for so long, it’s become hard to imagine living life any other way. At the same time, there’s also been this tiny hopeful voice in the back of my mind saying someday something will make me set the burden down. I wondered what that something would be.

This December was especially, and surprisingly, wearying. Even though we had every intention of creating a smaller Christmas at home, even though we set out to reduce stress in favor of simplicity… it was still so exhausting. It was like seeing something you want across a huge, crowded warehouse, knowing you have to somehow wade through all of the stuff to get there.

I think what I realized is that the thing I want isn’t a thing at all. If we’re sticking with the metaphor above, what I saw and wanted was the exit. I wanted to get out of that stifling warehouse. I wanted, and want, the peace of resting in God.

Next year, we’re thinking of giving the same thing to everyone on our gift list (a book they really want or a donation to their favorite cause) and just heading to the ocean or the mountains for a week. No Advent calendar of festive activities, no list-making and stress-buying. Just enjoying a slow wind-down from the year, together, as we wait for and then celebrate Love’s birth.

For now, we’re starting by practicing actually resting once a week. On Sundays, we take a break from our never-ending list of house projects (paint the kitchen! fix the faucet! prune the blueberry bushes!) and the ever-present list of work projects we’re each behind on. And we just… hang out. We stay in our pjs and let the kids do what they want, which is usually to watch a lot of shows, put together puzzles, and build elaborate forts. We read books for pleasure— the ones that have sat untouched on our nightstands for months. We attend Zoom church from the couch and if the kids wander off to build a tower or do a puzzle, we let them. Instead of taking turns “keeping the kids busy” so the other person can “get something done, ” we go check out a new playground or a walking path we haven’t tried, as a family.

It feels wonderful, and it also feels really hard. I keep surprising myself with how often my old habits kick in. I spot a patch of time when the baby is napping and the kids are playing and something in me starts to switch into overdrive: Quick! Do that load of laundry! Empty the dishwasher! Finally tackle that pile of random crap in the hall closet! Get ahead on that paper for school! I can feel my muscles tense up and my heartrate quicken. And then I take a breath and check in with how truly tired my body is, and how much I need to rest.

Some of the things I feel compelled to do are necessary. I’ll have to do them sooner or later. Some of the things are totally not necessary, like checking my email or social media, or mindlessly reading the news. And what really gets me is that on Sunday, when I deliberately do not do anything that I think of as “work,” I look up and see my people waiting there to be loved. I realize when I am constantly in a state of doing the next thing, I miss my opportunity to do the one thing I want most of all: to connect with God and with my family.

This is all coming from Shelly Miller’s book Rhythms of Rest, which I picked up and read in December on the recommendation of Ashlee Gadd, whose writing and community stewardship (and friendship!) have been so life-giving to me as a mother and creative these past six+ years. I’ll confess that I had my doubts about this book. I’d picked up a couple other books on the practice of Sabbath-keeping in the past, and hadn’t gotten much from them. I think this time, this book really spoke to me because I was ready to hear its message, because God has been showing me over the past few years how very real my limitations are.

The more I practice resting, the more profoundly I learn how much I need it, and how much of the things I think I “have to” do I can truly let go of. Friends, it is so, so freeing.

Imagine my delight, then, when the most recent issue of Geez magazine arrived, on the subject of Jubilee: a year of rest in the Christian tradition, wonderfully approached by the issue’s writers from the angle of its original purpose, which was liberation. Food for the hungry, release of the prisoner and the debtor. There’s a layer to rest that has very much to do with justice, particularly under the conditions of late stage capitalism. How can broken, tired, sick bodies heal in an economy where we are driven to produce? How can we escape the cycles of consuming and producing? I’m savoring this issue and getting ready to read I Didn’t Do the Thing Today, Madeline Dore’s book on undoing the lies of a culture that values productivity over all else.

What about you? How do you practice resting? Do you struggle with the compulsion to be productive at all times? What’s something joyful or surprising you’ve experienced recently when you chose to rest instead?

I’d love to hear. Whatever your hopes are for 2022, may you find rest this year, and may you know the peace of being loved for who you are, not what you do.

Love,

Melissa

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A few things to share:

• This year, I’m rereading the epic medieval trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter in the company of other writers, and blogging about it at Project Redux. You can read my first post here, and subscribe to follow along.

• We’ve got three Capricorns in our house, and the birthday banner was on our wall for three straight weeks. My littlest turned one at the end of December, and I wrote about the bittersweet milestone: the first birthday of our last baby. I turned 39 shortly after, and I reflected on finish lines as part of a fun blog hop on writing, running, and motherhood. A few days later my son turned four, and I had fun writing about just a few of the things I love about him.

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