Rest is holy, not a reward for the productive

Rest Is Holy, Not a Reward for the Productive Sandi Villarreal Earlier this month, Pope Francis, in his first public appearance after returning to the Vatican following an 11-day hospital stay for a scheduled surgery, told those gathered in St. Peter’s Square to “learn to take a break” and truly rest. “Let us beware, brothers and sisters, of efficiency,” Francis said, “let us put a halt to the frantic running around dictated by our agendas.” He was reflecting on Mark 6:30-34, in which Jesus instructs the disciples to “come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while,” after they told him all the preaching and teaching they had been doing. “Rest a while,” he told them. Holy, ever-elusive rest — it’s a simple command but, in my experience, a complicated practice. The pandemic has forced workers and corporations to engage in conversations around overwork, death-by-a-thousand-efficiencies, and the trauma that burnout unearths, but we still lack the vocabulary to really talk about rest. When I was recovering from my own surgery and accompanying hospital stay in late January, my body forced bed rest. I had planned for a couple of days off of work, but it stretched into more than a week; the severity of what had just happened caught me off guard. And I was restless. I wanted a lesson; this all had to mean something. So I took doses of books like medicine; I thought I could force a healthy mind and spirit with the wisdom of others, giving purpose to my newly foregrounded mortality. Friends sent me reading lists; my husband teased me about my emotional support pile. READ THE FULL ARTICLE Forward Share

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