I think the hardest part of being still is the not being. Among many things, this moment in time has–depending on how you look at it–given us the glorious permission to take a breath, pause, and be still. And yet, even in this moment I feel the familiar wrestling within myself. What to do, what to make, how to move forward?
On one hand, it’s true. This moment is one that can be used and used for good. There’s no denying that over the past couple of weeks I have found myself finally overcoming habits I’ve battled for years. Turns out when the temptation is removed, it’s much easier to resist. I’m cooking more, much to my dismay, but also a beautiful and wonderful thing for my health and budget. I’m planning and preparing. And stocking and cleaning. Staying ready and keeping sane. Things I’ve rarely been able to manage when things were “normal”.
But if I’m being honest, not to be confused with telling the truth or stating the facts, while I appreciate these new and positive changes, in true form I feel the need to go deeper and do more.
This moment, in actuality, feels like that precious hour of the day where a busy, work-at-home mother, and wife has a moment to herself. This moment, so sacred and rare, is full of possibility. She could write, she could pray. She could get dressed up, she could take a walk. She could exercise, or she could read. Oh the things she could do, oh the places she could go. And because she rarely has these moments, she’s fearful of squandering it. Of wasting it on the wrong thing. Stuck in her head, she exhausts herself and ends up sleeping the hour away. She is me.
Rest, to me, has subconsciously become synonymous to waste. So much so that even in the midst of a global upheaval, a collapsing, a pandemic, I find myself somewhere between being forced to pause and given permission to be still. Language that suggests that rest is earned, not given and even then, we shouldn’t actually want to use it. What a world we have been living in.
The reality is, I don’t know what I should be doing. I don’t know how to make the “best use” of this moment. I don’t know how to see or move through the fog. But in wondering these things, I recognize how distorted the perspective has become.
Perhaps instead of productivity, the only thing to be taken from this pause is peace.
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