oh lately it's been quiet...
When my roommate Michelle told me at the beginning at the year that it was the beginning of a season of rest for me, I had no idea what she was talking about.
I think I may have laughed at her.
rest 1 (rst)
n.
1. Cessation of work, exertion, or activity.
2. Peace, ease, or refreshment resulting from sleep or the cessation of an activity.
3. Sleep or quiet relaxation.
4. The repose of death: eternal rest.
5. Relief or freedom from disquiet or disturbance.
6. Mental or emotional tranquillity.
7. Termination or absence of motion.
8. Music
a. An interval of silence corresponding to one of the possible time values within a measure.
b. The mark or symbol indicating such a pause and its length.
9. A short pause in a line of poetry; a caesura.
10. A device used as a support: a back rest.
When I returned from Santa Barbara (much later and much more broken than expected), I was ready to jump back into my former way of life (meaning last year). How silly of me. How absurd to think that this year would be anything like the last. Upon deciding that I should drop both Biopsych and Honors Stats and focus on being a dance major alone, I was shutting a door for myself - the exact opposite of what I've always done. I've lived my life constantly wedging as many doors open, just trying to at least BE ABLE to do anything and everything I want, just in case. So, I lessened the amount of work I was going to be put through - moments after deciding this for myself, I found out I was to be leading a Bible study with a girl I've never met.
Okay, God, I see what you're playing at...
No, Meredith, you don't. Not yet.
The rest I'd gotten post-ME was good. Since being in the ME, I've gotten more sleep than I've ever had in my entire life. Since the ninth grade, I had survived on about 5 hours of sleep per night, with many an all-nighter. Starting in the ME, I started sleeping about nine hours a night and have ever since. Hmmm, a correlation between not being a ridiculous over-acheiver and more sleep? Hmm... So letting go of that part of my personality - the part that was obsessed with being the best, being the one who got to complain about having oh-so-much to do, the nine classes, the pride... there's the refreshment, there's the cessation of a (ridiculous, obsessive) activity. And there's the sleep.
Then there was that not quite sudden realization that I don't have to work at it - that I don't have to do anything, that if I rest in the Father, I'm good. I don't have to muscle through and stay up all night, I don't have to stress out and worry, that not only does He have a plan, but that it's good. That when I call on Him and go and pray to Him, and He will listen to me. That when I seek Him with all my heart, I will find Him. That's pretty awesome.
Okay God, I'm rested and ready to go.
Nope, Meredith. Not quite yet.
I thought my heart was okay. I thought that I had healed - it had been long enough, right? I had my heart broken this summer, in multiple ways, but I was sure that they were slight fractures, that they would heal in no time - because I had proclaimed to myself that I wasn't as invested as it would seem, that I was "guarding my heart". When I went back to that heart-breaker and tried to show how strong I was, I was broken again. When I went back to God and showed Him my wounds, He lightly scolded me for being so stubborn, and then the healing began - it hasn't finished yet, but we're getting there. The freedom is there and there abundantly. Those "disturbances" if you will, try to jump in and create chaos, but God guards my heart now - and I reckon He's pretty tough.
Wow, this whole guarding your heart thing is really working, maybe I'm ready for a relationshi-
Don't even go there, Meredith.
At this point, I'm unsure if I know quite what rest is. I know what sleep is like (I'm an expert on it, imo), I know what not doing things is like, I know what freedom from disquiet is like. Okay, now to tackle mental and emotional tranquility - when I can't even shut myself up long enough to meditate. Awesome. Stopping. And. Listening. To. The World. Taking time to be like my friend, Dani, and just appreciate silence and stillness - things I skate over on a daily basis. It's a lot more interesting than I thought it would be, but I can only handle it for moments at a time. Like when Yvette and I go to the Farmer's Market and use our moment to sit on the curb and enjoy pluots and the beautiful sky. Now that's a moment - one that satisfies.
I think it's in those moments that I acheive rest, if that's proper to say. It's not just a termination or absence of motion (because theoretically, that's actually not possible), it's that blue-sky body that my teacher always talks about. Like, imagine the outline of your body and that when you look at it, all you see is this blue sky. Infinitely there and yet not. You know that if you go far enough into that blue, that blue will fall away into black and cold. But that the blue isn't a thing, per se, that you see the blue but you can't really see the sky - you're in the sky. The sky is this lens that you look through and can't see the end of... because technically there is no end. And that's your body. I can't explain it any better than that.
All right, God, I've learned all this stuff. Can't you see that I'm ready to -
Meredith, you don't really pay attention, do you?
And so, while this quarter has felt like this pause in the busy timeline of my life, even though I've felt busy, I can still recline. I have learned that feeling like I need to "earn my rest" is somewhat bollocks. And knowing that this quarter has been mostly about me learning how to rest made finding out that I've had mononucleosis for the past month and a half even more hilarious.
Like, I seriously laughed.
I could probably go on for hours about the irony of my life and why, sometimes, when I think about the road that has brought me to this somewhat clammy bed in the self-proclaimed Burrow next to the Jesus Burgers house on the party street across from the beach at a school that at first seemed unlikely for someone like me which is ten miles from the town that it's named after that's eight hours from the podunk little town that changed my life and soul, that houses the people who broke my heart as well as make it swell with joy, which is 2,500 miles from the city that nursed me and kicked me around which is 2,000 miles the other way from where I was born, to two poor, nearly-divorced, lost people, one of which who knew that she was going to name her first child (that she knew would be a girl) Meredith, 20 years before my birth. All of this is extremely important, but not as important as tomorrow, when God will give me another day to live entirely for Him. He doesn't look at my past, He just points out when I look that He's always been there.
Now, it's way past my bedtime. Ha, more irony.
Love (almost too much),
Always (I mean it),
Meredith
I think I may have laughed at her.
rest 1 (rst)
n.
1. Cessation of work, exertion, or activity.
2. Peace, ease, or refreshment resulting from sleep or the cessation of an activity.
3. Sleep or quiet relaxation.
4. The repose of death: eternal rest.
5. Relief or freedom from disquiet or disturbance.
6. Mental or emotional tranquillity.
7. Termination or absence of motion.
8. Music
a. An interval of silence corresponding to one of the possible time values within a measure.
b. The mark or symbol indicating such a pause and its length.
9. A short pause in a line of poetry; a caesura.
10. A device used as a support: a back rest.
When I returned from Santa Barbara (much later and much more broken than expected), I was ready to jump back into my former way of life (meaning last year). How silly of me. How absurd to think that this year would be anything like the last. Upon deciding that I should drop both Biopsych and Honors Stats and focus on being a dance major alone, I was shutting a door for myself - the exact opposite of what I've always done. I've lived my life constantly wedging as many doors open, just trying to at least BE ABLE to do anything and everything I want, just in case. So, I lessened the amount of work I was going to be put through - moments after deciding this for myself, I found out I was to be leading a Bible study with a girl I've never met.
Okay, God, I see what you're playing at...
No, Meredith, you don't. Not yet.
The rest I'd gotten post-ME was good. Since being in the ME, I've gotten more sleep than I've ever had in my entire life. Since the ninth grade, I had survived on about 5 hours of sleep per night, with many an all-nighter. Starting in the ME, I started sleeping about nine hours a night and have ever since. Hmmm, a correlation between not being a ridiculous over-acheiver and more sleep? Hmm... So letting go of that part of my personality - the part that was obsessed with being the best, being the one who got to complain about having oh-so-much to do, the nine classes, the pride... there's the refreshment, there's the cessation of a (ridiculous, obsessive) activity. And there's the sleep.
Then there was that not quite sudden realization that I don't have to work at it - that I don't have to do anything, that if I rest in the Father, I'm good. I don't have to muscle through and stay up all night, I don't have to stress out and worry, that not only does He have a plan, but that it's good. That when I call on Him and go and pray to Him, and He will listen to me. That when I seek Him with all my heart, I will find Him. That's pretty awesome.
Okay God, I'm rested and ready to go.
Nope, Meredith. Not quite yet.
I thought my heart was okay. I thought that I had healed - it had been long enough, right? I had my heart broken this summer, in multiple ways, but I was sure that they were slight fractures, that they would heal in no time - because I had proclaimed to myself that I wasn't as invested as it would seem, that I was "guarding my heart". When I went back to that heart-breaker and tried to show how strong I was, I was broken again. When I went back to God and showed Him my wounds, He lightly scolded me for being so stubborn, and then the healing began - it hasn't finished yet, but we're getting there. The freedom is there and there abundantly. Those "disturbances" if you will, try to jump in and create chaos, but God guards my heart now - and I reckon He's pretty tough.
Wow, this whole guarding your heart thing is really working, maybe I'm ready for a relationshi-
Don't even go there, Meredith.
At this point, I'm unsure if I know quite what rest is. I know what sleep is like (I'm an expert on it, imo), I know what not doing things is like, I know what freedom from disquiet is like. Okay, now to tackle mental and emotional tranquility - when I can't even shut myself up long enough to meditate. Awesome. Stopping. And. Listening. To. The World. Taking time to be like my friend, Dani, and just appreciate silence and stillness - things I skate over on a daily basis. It's a lot more interesting than I thought it would be, but I can only handle it for moments at a time. Like when Yvette and I go to the Farmer's Market and use our moment to sit on the curb and enjoy pluots and the beautiful sky. Now that's a moment - one that satisfies.
I think it's in those moments that I acheive rest, if that's proper to say. It's not just a termination or absence of motion (because theoretically, that's actually not possible), it's that blue-sky body that my teacher always talks about. Like, imagine the outline of your body and that when you look at it, all you see is this blue sky. Infinitely there and yet not. You know that if you go far enough into that blue, that blue will fall away into black and cold. But that the blue isn't a thing, per se, that you see the blue but you can't really see the sky - you're in the sky. The sky is this lens that you look through and can't see the end of... because technically there is no end. And that's your body. I can't explain it any better than that.
All right, God, I've learned all this stuff. Can't you see that I'm ready to -
Meredith, you don't really pay attention, do you?
And so, while this quarter has felt like this pause in the busy timeline of my life, even though I've felt busy, I can still recline. I have learned that feeling like I need to "earn my rest" is somewhat bollocks. And knowing that this quarter has been mostly about me learning how to rest made finding out that I've had mononucleosis for the past month and a half even more hilarious.
Like, I seriously laughed.
I could probably go on for hours about the irony of my life and why, sometimes, when I think about the road that has brought me to this somewhat clammy bed in the self-proclaimed Burrow next to the Jesus Burgers house on the party street across from the beach at a school that at first seemed unlikely for someone like me which is ten miles from the town that it's named after that's eight hours from the podunk little town that changed my life and soul, that houses the people who broke my heart as well as make it swell with joy, which is 2,500 miles from the city that nursed me and kicked me around which is 2,000 miles the other way from where I was born, to two poor, nearly-divorced, lost people, one of which who knew that she was going to name her first child (that she knew would be a girl) Meredith, 20 years before my birth. All of this is extremely important, but not as important as tomorrow, when God will give me another day to live entirely for Him. He doesn't look at my past, He just points out when I look that He's always been there.
Now, it's way past my bedtime. Ha, more irony.
Love (almost too much),
Always (I mean it),
Meredith
It's amazing to see where God has been taking you. We all definitely need the time of rest...time of Sabbath. I tend to do a lot, but I find rest because I find joy in the things I do. When it comes to classes...that's when I don't think I have much rest. Of course I should find rest from the things I find enjoyable at the same time...that is where my break comes in.
ReplyDeletehaha, Kenneth, you def need more rest! although, you've gotten better about not falling asleep in church, for the most part... :)
ReplyDelete