As we move deeper into July, there's a strange mix of bursts of activity, sour news, worrisome weather, and a pressure to finish what must be finished before life accelerates in the fall.
That had become the feel of Southern California as the July 4th holiday passed, and I chewed over ideas for today's post. Then last night I saw something that swept away such thoughts. I had to make a late evening shopping run at the end of a very long, busy day, and as I turned the corner onto the main boulevard leading home, I saw in the darkening row of buildings, a lit marquis from one of the churches along the road. Usually, the large churches in the neighborhood fill their signs with sermon titles, dates and times of service, and names of the speakers, but this sign glowed white with only 1 word in black--4 letters--which immediately flooded me with peace. It simply said, "REST".
Even now, with more to-do lists in front of me, I have to smile at the irony of the power of that sign. I have been in ministry for 39 years and when Hillside built it's first church in the Heights in Albuquerque (1986), we too installed a marquis, and I took on the job of putting up the weekly Sunday notice. Like most ministers we strove to have attention catching titles. (Probably the most audacious was Larry Morris' "Bullet Train to Nirvana".) By contrast, I now appreciate the impact of simply announcing "REST". But what flooded through me at the stop light was the clarity of the spiritual meaning. This is not a call to just resting the body, or the mind, or seeing that you get a good night's sleep. This is a call to awareness that all things, ALL things, rest in the unfathomable Cosmic Order. ALL things, rest in God. As St. Augustine wrote, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.”
So spiritual rest is stopping the struggle, including the struggle to be our "best self" in order to simply be and trust the larger field of God. Often that feels like a reaching, and an intuitive stirring, that is both longing and peace. It becomes a resting in acceptance, and the deepening assurance of Good. With that rest, we learn to trust the promptings of our own hearts, still 'resting' while fully participating in life as who, what and where we are. Let today bring you spiritual rest. (Susan Nettleton)
For poetry follow the links: https://allpoetry.com/Moments-Indulgence
https://www.seedsofsilence.org.uk/pax---dh-lawrence.html
https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../RestBeTaken/index.html
from Larry Morris, https://hillsidesource.com/destiny-poem