Space For Wonder By Nell Campbell

This past Sunday morning, after I shared the story of Creation with our 4th & 5th graders, a student asked if I thought God sat up late and made a plan for the next day, and the next, each evening preceding every day of creation. I sat for a moment as the inquirer went on, wondering aloud what that would be like for God with no one to talk to or make plans with. The immensity of that aloneness overwhelmed me for a moment, and I couldn’t think straight. 

 Luckily for me, in Godly Play we are not called to have firm answers. We are content to wonder about the mystery that we observe. And so, we did, we wondered about the time before everything when God was just God alone, before Creation. And about making plans. It has been my few day’s reflection. 

 This happens almost every time I get to be the storyteller in Godly Play. I’m given the gift of hearing a young wonderer’s mind frame a point of view spectacularly different from my own. What about those godly plans? I certainly plan. I probably make more plans than I need and have since high school. I’ve always thought planning work helps me wrestle with the idea, or task, that I’m getting ready to take on. I have lists, outlines, color coded calendars of various styles for different parts of my life, short term projects and long term goals. And just before St. Patrick’s Day this spring I, like most all of us on the planet, had to start unplanning. 

I hated making all those changes, to cancel so many things I was excited to do, see, and learn. I’ll probably be able to reschedule a lot of them for future months and years, but I was surprised by how this upended the way I’ve thought about life for the past 30 years. And sitting without any plans for most of this year has made me feel like the year is going to waste. This grief was churned up on Sunday wondering about how God might consider all this planning I had surround myself with. I have been wondering if I’m using my plans as shields against the stillness that would mean I have to actually engage with my soul and God without the backdrop of busyness. And then this morning I stumbled upon these few lines from T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding: 

    We shall not cease from exploration
    And the end of all our exploring
    Will be to arrive where we started
    And know the place for the first time.
    Through the unknown, unremembered gate
    When the last of earth left to discover
    Is that which was the beginning;
    At the source of the longest river
    The voice of the hidden waterfall
    And the children in the apple-tree

Alright, I get it now. Pay attention to the questions children ask. They may be asking the questions we grown ups should be asking, too.

Finding Your Sabbath

"Today is a day of rest."

"Rest? We haven't done anything."

"Exactly. I've done everything. You now rest in what I've done."

If you know anything about the Enneagram, it should be glaringly obvious I am a strong Type 1, the reformer (or perfectionist...) I'm organized, responsible, orderly, and sensible, just to name a few of my more positive qualities. But for each of those more flattering attributes, I can easily give way to criticism, obsessive perfectionism, and an inability to rest.

Rest has never come easily. I will always find something that needs to be done. Even in a rare quiet moment when I'm alone in the house, I will clean the bathroom, fold laundry, work on bills, etc. Sitting, reading, watching TV, all give me a sense of unease, like I have left something undone. Even on the days I claim as my day off, I fill with appointments or some other task.

In the busy seasons of life, I power through to accomplish that which is asked of me. In the past two weeks I have helped my 8th grader get setup for virtual learning, sent my 3.5 year old to preschool, cared for my 20 month old, helped my husband get settled into his new job, found new insurance and doctors for our family, and kicked off online groups at the Cathedral. In the wake of meeting the needs of others, I forgot something very important. Me. My needs. My rest.

It's so interesting that when I am too busy to listen, God finds an abrupt way to make me pay attention. Last weekend I had no internet in my house for three days, and the Cathedral email server was down. On Saturday I woke up incredibly sick and stayed in bed all day. On Sunday, the Cathedral network crashed. I could keep going. I had neglected my Sabbath the past few weeks while meeting the needs of others. God was reminding me that the Sabbath wasn't a novel idea. It was something he commands. And the need for rest isn't just for my physical needs. It's to look deeply and rest in all that God has created and what he has done. 

Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Matthew 11:28-29

I am weary, and I carry burdens I shouldn't. My soul needs needs a Sabbath. So today, ironically Labor Day, I claim for rest. As soon as I'm done writing this, of course. ;)