This week I will be heading up to Lake of the Woods for our annual priest support group retreat. Then they drop me off in Bemidji on Friday and my canoe buddies pick me up for our 31st annual canoe trip (where we will be camping, fishing etc.) I am all packed, because I am leaving right after Mass (and hopefully stopping in at our sister parish’s Summer Festival). And one of most important things that I am bringing is . . . my pillow. [Reveal my pillow].
This is crucial for any going on a retreat or a vacation . . . because it’s good to rest. We all need it. Jesus tells his disciples, “Come by yourselves to an out of the way place and rest a while.”
Jesus says that now only because they have returned from their missionary journey (which we heard about last week) and were probably exhausted, but perhaps Jesus also offers it as a way of life for any of us.
Too many times, we say, “I wish there were more hours in the day.” or “I am just too busy to take a break or to slow down. There’s too much to do.” Or at night, when we have the time to sleep, sometimes it’s so hard to fall asleep because there’s so many thoughts, or worries or concerns . . . and we just can’t get to sleep.
Or as parents of toddlers know, that nap time can be a big “pain in derriere time” because they just won’t lie down. And bed time at night gets even worse. Maybe that’s because, in part, they have learned well from us. They don’t see us taking breaks or taking time to rest . . . so they “learn” that it must be better to stay awake.
And all of this is goofy, because even God rested on the 7th day. Or think of Jesus, when he was in the boat and a storm came up and in the midst of all that craziness of big waves and wind . . . Jesus napped!
When we forget to take care of ourselves, what good are we to God? How can we be instruments for God when we work ourselves into a frenzy or get so nervous that we have upset stomachs or headaches, or even nervous breakdowns and we can’t even function? Or we think that being a “good person” or a “good Christian” is to be: busy, alert, wide-awake-at-all-times.
But like in the gospel, Jesus tells the disciples to take breaks, rest. The work sleep comes from the German “schlaff” which means to loose (or rather to hang loose).
I say, that when you take a nap or take a break, it is a form of prayer. For you are declaring, “OK God, I am going to check out now for a bit. Somehow, the world will survive without me.
You are in charge.”
Napping is letting God be God, and we don’t have to be god. We are the sheep as the gospel said, and God is the shepherd who takes care of us. Trust that. So take some time off during these summer days. Let go and rest.