by Mindy Misener
In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust is your strength. —Isaiah 30:15
The baby is like a Zen master, sweet and severe all at once. Recently, she’s been teaching me about rest. And by “teaching me” I mean startling herself during a nap and coming awake wailing, leaving me, the bumbling novice, scrambling to figure out what to do: rock her? Bounce her? Feed her?
A few days ago, I had a breakthrough. I finally figured out that, at this stage, it’s not my job to “get” her back to sleep, but I shouldn’t leave her alone, either. Instead, my role is to support her in finding her own way back. This process may take ten or twenty weepy minutes, but eventually she solves, again, the trick of letting go, and rests peacefully once more.
I’m thinking about rest for the simple reason that pretty much everyone I know is exhausted—psychologically, physically, emotionally. To be clear, “everyone I know” includes me. It’s been quite a year. We are all so tired. We all need relief.
Years ago, I studied the Alexander Technique, which was designed to support actors and vocalists in their physically demanding roles. Though I’m neither an actor nor a vocalist (admittedly, I pretend to be one in the car), I still found the practice helpful in my own day-to-day.
The most profound lesson I learned is that we can become hooked on the feeling of effort. As one Alexander Technique teacher writes, “My muscle tension assured me that I existed, [and] created my belief in my need to try harder.”
My point is that we make most things harder than they need to be. I say that not as an admonishment, not to charge myself with “doing it wrong,” but as a soft reminder that I do not need to add effort to my actions in order for them to be effective. A door can be gently opened, stairs gracefully and smoothly climbed.
The unnecessary effort I add to physical activity has emotional and spiritual analogues. What’s wrong with a simple, slight feeling? Why do my prayers have to be fervent?
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In the message for November 8, I quoted from Isaiah chapter 30: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust is your strength.” I don’t think it’s a coincidence that “rest” and “trust” appear in the same sentence. To rest, either in repose or in activity, is to trust. We can trust that what we are doing is enough. That we are enough.
We can learn to simultaneously act and let go. And when we forget this lesson, we can learn it again.
The trust required to rest again, to let go, is not automatic. We have to try and try. That’s what I’m telling my daughter these days, as she wails about her broken sleep: “It doesn’t feel good to be tired, and it’s hard to let go. Keep trying. You’ll get there eventually.”
The surest sign she’s headed back to sleep is that her face relaxes. Her tiny lips toy with a smile. How sweet is rest when we invite it in once more.
— Mindy Misener teaches creative writing at Montana State University
and serves as Pilgrim's 2021 stewardship chair