Rest in God, not from God
Image by Jessica Delpt on Unsplash
It’s at about this time of year that I start to crave a holiday. The evenings are lengthening, the bluebells are giving way to foxgloves in the fields and the first little carts selling Wexford strawberries are starting to appear at the roadsides. I wake up early, knowing in my bones that it’s summer, and even though I haven’t been in school for going on five years, the pattern of the season is too deeply ingrained to shake. Some subconscious, instinctive part of myself still thinks that it’s time to take life easy, stop driving myself on for a while. It’s quite right, of course – just because we grow out of school does not mean we grow out of rest. The funny thing is though, that whenever I take a holiday, I seem to come back more tired than before. “I need a holiday to recover from my holiday,” I always joke.
A formless temptation
The same seems to hold true of my weekends sometimes; my weekdays have a strict routine that feels grueling at the time, but the formlessness of Saturdays and Sundays is almost worse. I rattle from busyness to mindless entertainment, and never seem to be restored. In fact, the thing about being constantly busy is that you forget how to rest. Everything starts to look like a chore, even the hobbies you enjoy or the prayer that should, by rights, bring you peace. I sit slack-jawed in front of Netflix on a Friday night, stay in bed clutching my phone on a Saturday morning. Sometimes I feel as though I’m fraying at the edges, and I wonder if I look as frazzled as I feel. Are there little threads trailing after me, do I vibrate slightly when I have to sit still and do nothing?
Holidays are the weekend temptation writ large. Without the firm structure of my working routine to support me, I get sloppy; I miss mass and forget to do my daily prayer. I tell myself that I need a break from God too, that no one can be perfect all the time. I’m missing the point, of course, as I remember on the days when I actually do manage to get myself settled in front of a tabernacle somehow. I empty out my heart, awkwardly, gracelessly, with a certain amount of resentment for how bad I am at this after all these years. There are no blinding lights, no voices from heaven in response. Instead, after a time, silence comes stealing over me. My sense of self becomes less hazy and the feeling of frantic internal motion gives way to a heavy stillness, as the last moments of consciousness before sleep; it’s grounding, like a cool hand on a feverish forehead.
What the world cannot give
This is the difference between the peace of the world and the peace of God. Jesus is pretty explicit about this one in his great Farewell Discourse, his long and beautiful speech to the apostles at the Last Supper: “Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you, a peace the world cannot give.” Where the world promises rest, it gives me distraction, entertainment and highs of varying levels of toxicity at worst, and at best, a kind of complacent contentment rooted entirely in material comforts. This is not peace; a bad head cold is enough to destroy it entirely, making me listless, snappy and self-pitying.
The peace Jesus is referring to is less instantaneously attractive to me. I can’t grab it quickly on the go, like a takeaway coffee or pop it like a painkiller to numb some immediate form of distress. It cannot be shoved to the back of a shelf or left crumpled in a suitcase while I go off to have fun, have my break. It takes time, time I’m reluctant to give when I’m so busy (or, as my conscience often whispers, so selfish) and it requires honesty and sincerity in prayer. It can be hard work, letting this peace in, letting it take me. This feels unfair – don’t I deserve a holiday from all forms of work, even spiritual work?
Where God waits
But once again, I’m missing the point. I’m imagining that there is some form of rest that involves no activity, no effort, no tiresome relating to others; it’s a constant temptation for me, but it has nothing to do with the actual reality of what a human person needs – as I know very well, because I’ve tried all these things. I’ve tried staying in bed for hours, and I’ve tried never trying, and I’ve tried isolating myself from people and funnily enough, it all makes me feel worse. The skittering facsimile of peace that world offers is nothing more than a constant running away from myself, from the depths of my soul where God waits. Prayer is often described as waiting for God, but the truth is, He’s waiting for us. He’s present everywhere and at all times, waiting for us to remember that we can actually ask Him for things and He will actually, only-too-gladly give them. And Jesus promised, one of the things He will give us is peace – not inaction, not distraction, but that radiant silence that makes us ourselves again. True peace is strengthening, it’s restorative; it energises and gives hope, makes you want to do great things, with others and for them.