Tag Archives: work and rest

Daily Riches: The Neglected Cultivation of Sacred Idleness (Thomas Merton, George MacDonald)

Posted on by under Awareness, Being and Doing, Busyness, Hurry Sickness, Rest and Relaxation, Stillness, Striving and drivenness

“Our being is not to be enriched merely by activity and experience as such. Everything depends on the quality of our acts and our experiences. A multitude of badly performed actions and of experiences only half lived exhausts and depletes our being. …when our activity is habitually disordered, our malformed conscience can think of nothing better to tell us than to multiply the quantity of our acts, without perfecting their quality. And so we go from bad to worse, exhausting ourselves, empty our whole life of all content, and fall into despair. There are times, then, when in order to keep ourselves in existence at all we simply have to sit back for a while and do nothing. And for a man who has let himself be drawn completely out of himself by his activity, nothing is more difficult than to sit still and rest, doing nothing at all. The very act of resting is the hardest and most courageous act he can perform; and often it is quite beyond his power.” Thomas Merton

“Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.” George MacDonald

“my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Jesus, in Matthew 11:30

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Is your life ever depleted by “disordered” activity – by a multitude of “badly performed actions?”
  • Are you ever “drawn completely out of yourself” by such excessive activity?
  • When your experience comes up short, is your response to simply “multiply the quantity” of your acts?
  • Are you able to recollect yourself by cultivating “sacred idleness?” …doing nothing at all? Can you see why this could be “the hardest and most courageous act” you could do when frenzy brings despair?

Abba, deliver me from experience only half lived. Help me do less and do it more deliberately, slowly, and fully.

For More: No Man Is An Island by Thomas Merton

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: God is Present … Are You? (Lynne Baab and Mark Buckanan)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, awe and wonder, Being the Beloved, Busyness, Loving Well, Mindfulness, Rest and Relaxation, Sabbath Rhythms, Self-care, Striving and drivenness, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

“The Sabbath teaches us grace because it connects us experientially to the basic truth that nothing we do will earn God’s love. As long as we are working hard, using our gifts to serve others, experiencing joy in our work along with the toil, we are always in danger of believing that our actions trigger God’s love for us. Only in stopping, really stopping, do we teach our hearts and souls that we are loved apart from what we do. During a day of rest, we have the chance to take a deep breath and look at our lives. God is at work every minute of our days, yet we seldom notice. Noticing requires intentional stopping, and the Sabbath provides that opportunity. On the Sabbath we can take a moment to see the beauty of a maple leaf, created with great care by our loving Creator…. Without time to stop, we cannot notice God’s hand in our lives, practice thankfulness, step outside our culture’s values or explore our deepest longings. Without time to rest, we will seriously undermine our ability to experience God’s unconditional love and acceptance. The Sabbath is a gift whose blessings cannot be found anywhere else.” Lynne Baab

“And now we’re all tired. We dream of that day when our work will be done, when we can finally wash the dust of it from our skin, but that day never comes. We look in vain for the day of our work’s completion. But it is mythical, like unicorns and dragons. So we dream…. [But] God, out of the bounty of his own nature, held this day apart and stepped fully into it, then turned and said, ‘Come, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, Come, and I will give you rest. Come, join me here.'” Mark Buchanan

“You can’t wait
for the Sabbath day
to be over….”
Amos 5:4

 Moving From Head to Heart

  • God is present everywhere, and continually present to us, coming to us in love. Have you been stopping long enough to “notice?”
  • How are you at practicing thankfulness? … at stepping outside your culture’s values? …at exploring your deepest longings? Could the practice of “stopping intentionally” help you do better?
  • When is the last time you “really stopped” for at least one whole day? Are you too stressed, distracted, or simply exhausted to experience God’s love–or to love others well?

Abba, help me to live by my convictions when it comes to keeping a weekly sabbath, and as I do, transform the other six days as well.

For More: Sabbath Keeping by Lynne Baab

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words. –  Bill

Daily Riches: Sabbath and the Rhythm of Rest (Nancy Schongalla-Bowman and Mark Buchanan) *

Posted on by under Being and Doing, Busyness, Hurry Sickness, Rest and Relaxation, Sabbath Rhythms, Self-care

“Despite the commandment, despite the day of rest and savoring that closed the creation story, many of us struggle to maintain a rhythm that includes intentional times of play and “non-doing.” Having just finished nature’s season of Sabbath we are reminded that spring, creativity, newness of life, are preceded by fallow time when it appears that nothing is happening. Prayer too is a time when it appears that nothing is happening. But Sabbath and prayer provide necessary opportunities for us to re-align with God and to remember that our purpose is union, faithfulness, and delight, not perfection or productivity.” Nancy Schongalla-Bowman

“”The Exodus command, with its call to imitation, plays on a hidden irony: we mimic God in order to remember we’re not God. In fact, that is a good definition of Sabbath: imitating God so that we stop trying to be God.” Mark Buchanan

“Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work,
so that your ox and your donkey may rest,
and so that the slave born in your household
and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed.”
Exodus 23:12

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Many of us sense the need for “realigning with God” during each day (e.g., Daily Office) and in the course of each week (Sabbath) – and yet we “struggle” with these practices. What do you suppose accounts for that?
  • Even if the Sabbath command is no longer binding today, can you hear God’s heart in Exodus 23 – to give the gift of rest to his people and those who work for them – even to animals? Do you see value in rest and “fallow time” in the world?  in your life?
  • Do you agree with the statement that our purpose “is union, faithfulness, and delight, not perfection or productivity?” Even productivity? Have you built elements into your regular schedule that reflect this claim?

Abba, sometimes it seems like everyone else is running, striving, and grasping – chasing the brass ring, measuring by accomplishment, affirmation and efficiency. I want union with you more than I want those things. Help me to develop a rhythm of regularly recalibrating my relationship with you and your purposes.

__________

For More: ”Sabbath: Keeping a Rhythm of Rest” by Nancy Schongalla-Bowman

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“There grows in me an immense dissatisfaction with all that is merely passively accepted as truth, without struggle and without examination. Faith, surely, is not passive, and not an evasion. And today, more than ever, the things we believe, I mean especially the things we accept on human faith—reported matters of ‘fact,’ questions of history, of policy, of interpretation, of wants—they should be very few.” Thomas Merton   These Daily Riches are designed to encourage examination of convictions, of faith, so that we increasingly trust in the God who is really there, and less in our ideas of Him. Thanks for reading and sharing my daily blog. –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Seeing Solitude as Intolerable (Blaise Pascal and Friedrich Nietzsche) *

Posted on by under Silence, Solitude, Stillness

“Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he faces his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness. And at once there well up from the depths of his soul boredom, gloom, depression, chagrin, resentment, despair.” Blaise Pascal

“When we are quiet and alone, we fear that something will be whispered in our ears,
and so we hate the quiet, and dull our senses in society.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“I have become like a bird alone on a roof.” Psalm 102:7

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you find it “intolerable” when you’re alone with nothing to do and nothing to distract you?  to be “in a state of complete rest?” Do you “dull your senses in society?”
  • This experience seems pretty unpleasant, sometimes even dangerous (“despair”), and yet, isn’t Pascal commending it to us, and Nietzsche warning us about what we do? Why do you suppose that is?
  • Are you willing to face your “nullity [nothingness], loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, [and] emptiness … in a state of complete rest?” What plan can you make to begin to try that? Who do you know who can help guide or encourage you?

Abba, I want to own my neediness and helplessness before you, and not dull my senses with vain distractions. Teach me to come into your presence and be at rest.

__________

For More: Pensees by Blaise Pascal

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These Daily Riches are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in 400 words or less. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others as we seek to find our satisfaction in our unfailingly loving God. (Psalm 90:14) . I appreciate your interest! – Bill

Daily Riches: Sabbath and the Rhythm of Rest (Nancy Schongalla-Bowman)

Posted on by under Being and Doing, Busyness, Hurry Sickness, Sabbath Rhythms

“Despite the commandment, despite the day of rest and savoring that closed the creation story, many of us struggle to maintain a rhythm that includes intentional times of play and “non-doing.” Having just finished nature’s season of Sabbath we are reminded that spring, creativity, newness of life, are preceded by fallow time when it appears that nothing is happening. Prayer too is a time when it appears that nothing is happening. But Sabbath and prayer provide necessary opportunities for us to re-align with God and to remember that our purpose is union, faithfulness, and delight, not perfection or productivity.”

“Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work,
so that your ox and your donkey may rest,
and so that the slave born in your household
and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed.”
Exodus 23:12

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Many of us sense the need for “realigning with God” during each day (e.g., Daily Office) and in the course of each week (Sabbath) – and yet we “struggle” with these practices. What do you suppose accounts for that?
  • Even if the Sabbath command is no longer binding today, can you hear God’s heart in Exodus 23 – to give the gift of rest to his people and those who work for them – even to animals? Do you see value in rest and “fallow time” in the world?  in your life?
  • Do you agree with the statement that our purpose “is union, faithfulness, and delight, not perfection or productivity?” Even productivity? Have you built elements into your regular schedule that reflect this claim?

Abba, sometimes it seems like everyone else is running, striving, and grasping – chasing the brass ring, measuring by accomplishment, affirmation and efficiency. I want union with you more than I want those things. Help me to develop a rhythm of regularly recalibrating my relationship with you and your purposes.

__________

For More: ”Sabbath: Keeping a Rhythm of Rest” by Nancy Schongalla-Bowman

_________________________________________________

The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Intolerable Solitude (Blaise Pascal)

Posted on by under Silence, Solitude, Stillness

“Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest,

without passions without occupation, without diversion, without effort.
Then he faces his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy,
dependence, helplessness, emptiness.
And at once there well up from the depths of his soul
boredom, gloom, depression, chagrin, resentment, despair.”
Blaise Pascal

“I have become like a bird alone on a roof.” Psalm 102:7

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you find it “intolerable” when you’re alone with nothing to do and nothing to distract you?  to be “in a state of complete rest?”
  • This experience seems pretty unpleasant, sometimes even dangerous (“despair”), and yet, isn’t Pascal commending it to us? Why do you suppose that is?
  • Are you willing to face your “nullity [nothingness], loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, [and] emptiness … in a state of complete rest?” What plan can you make to begin to try that? Who do you know who can help guide or encourage you?

Abba, I want to own my neediness and helplessness before you, to turn to you always and learn not to depend on myself. Teach me to come into your presence and just “rest.”

__________

For More: Pensees by Blaise Pascal

_________________________________________________

The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)