This Sunday, I invite you to a day of restoration. We know in the Bible creation story, God rested on the 7th day and from this arose the traditional idea that Sunday, when considered the 7th day of the week, is deemed a "day of rest". Although our 24/7 culture no longer supports that practice, I am taking that idea yet a bit further, from rest to restoration. Rest of course is one of the ways that we do restore our energy. Modern medical research has given us the understanding of what is called "restorative sleep" (essentially requiring that the body cycles fully through all 5 stages of sleep in approximately a 24 hour cycle of chemical and hormonal shifts)--this is the natural reparative and maintenance work of the body and brain. Shakespeare defined it this way: " ...Sleep that knits-up the raveled sleeve care. The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast." (Macbeth) The quote itself is a balm and a reminder that sleep, despite the continuous pressure of modern life, is a restorative process.
Society gives us many different models for restoration--medical and dental procedures, cosmetics, nutrition products, and not just restoration for humans, but for things like photos, paintings, houses. At the forefront of the larger picture, we have the pressure to restore life and culture to it's pre-Pandemic state. Finally, we face the urgent issue of restoring ecological balance for the planet.
From a spiritual perspective this Sunday, consider the opening lines of the 23rd Psalm ( ESV): "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul." Here is yet another type of restoration, not one that is an attempt to hold on to conditions, images or stages of our past and resist the march of time, but rather an affirmation of that which is outside the realm of time. Restoration of our soul can mean healing and nourishment of our spiritual core that comes as we turn toward our Source. The soul is restored in prayer, in meditation, even in the act of reaching for It. Soul restoration points to Awakening, rather than continuing to 'sleep' in the delusions and illusions of our separate identity in a frightening, frustrating, frantic world. As you contemplate a day of restoration from any or all of these levels, consider this verse on the words of 20th century Indian saga Ramana Maharshi. (Susan Nettleton)
#884 A woman with a necklace round Her neck imagines it is lost, And after long search elsewhere touches Her own neck and there finds it; even So, the Self is here within. Probe for it there and find it.
[Source: https://archive.arunachala.org/docs//garland-ogs/verses]