The delight of rest

With the students getting out of school and the warm weather, I've started to feel the summer state of mind lately. It's a beautiful call to rest, to be free and to be present, the kind of presence children have because they don't make plans and don't have items on an agenda to check off; without a schedule, they are free to go from activity to activity as it interests them, following the tug of their desires wherever it takes them.

I think maybe that's why movies about summertime and childhood have so embedded themselves in our collective consciousness: We are most alive and open to the love of God when we are in the present. It's a practice we can learn from, clearing our schedules and ridding ourselves of our incessant need to arrive at destinations, so we can be open to what and who is around us.

This, poet Mary Oliver proposes, is perhaps what prayer is, and she writes about it in her poem "The Summer Day:" "I don't know exactly what a prayer is. / I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, / how to kneel down in the grass, / how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, / which is what I have been doing all day. / Tell me, what else should I have done? / Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? / Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

I love these lines because by undefining prayer, Oliver paints us a picture of what prayer is: openness. When we empty ourselves of schedules, answers, definitions, we are free to receive God's presence and the myriad of gifts that come with it.

In our church's bulletin the other week, I read these words: "Job Description: Do not feel totally, personally, irrevocably responsible for everything ... That's my job. -- God." Sometimes, I need that reminder of humility to remember I am a human and not divine; therefore, I don't know everything and can't do everything, nor am I asked to. As a person, I am asked to enjoy what and who is before me, to seek and find God all around and within me, and to dwell in that deep, abiding love, while making life better for the people around me.

This is the kindness of Jesus' call in Mark 6:31, where he invites us to "Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while," and his promise of peace in John 14:27: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid." I hope this summer gives us many opportunities to rest and receive this peace, to enjoy, pray, love and be present and free.