Rest

Yesterday was an excellent day.

Getting up and opening up our stockings with no showers or apple pie preparations intruding on this sacred event;

Seeing the living room quickly filled with dinosaurs and snorts of all shapes and sizes, with mommy and baby giraffes and elephants joining the fun;

Being blown away by my husband who continues to be more thoughtful and romantic than I could ever deserve.

And as always, the Staubs did not disappoint: the best coffee, one of my favorite cabernets with dinner, Kathy’s phenomenal cooking, and some nice Maker’s Mark;

Clouds that lifted midday to reveal the snowcapped peaks of “my mountains” (the place where Doug proposed to me);

Pop Pop and Mercy’s hot tub swim party;

Catching up with my girls and hearing stories about New York, SPU, and high school, as well as celebrating some of our favorite Chicago memories.

There are certain people who become for us the places where we find rest. Yesterday was rich with those people. In the last few years, I have realized how intensely precious these places are to me, and how deeply I want my children to know a life filled with them. To simply sit and be with one another and to laugh and play can feel like a lost art at times. Something reserved for special occassions with little relevence to our day to day. With all our busyness and achievement and commuting and distractions, the acts of resting and playing together can be forgotten, neglected, diminished. We are led to believe that these are indulgences to be enjoyed in moderation. I think that is a lie.

As I sat with a still soul yesterday, I thought how much easier it is to be this person when there are ferry boats and mountains outside the living room window; when there are other people playing with your children; when someone else is bearing the brunt of hostessing. And of course that is true. Yet we are called just as strongly to be a people of rest and relationship in the midst of graffitti and drug deals, and sirens, dishes, and diapers. I think about the ways that sabbath rhythms defined God’s people for so many years, regardless of their geography or circumstance. And I think of how battered and blown about we are today by the winds of a culture of production and consumption that threatens to drive us further and further from those things that make us human.

As we drove home last night I wondered: what would it look like for us to become a sabbath kind of people again?