C: The Cote Meeting and Rest

Last weekend was a busy weekend. First, there was the flurry of trying to get my house in order enough to host our Three Blind Sheep dinner Saturday night. M and S are good friends and totally non-judgmental about my messiness (or seem to be, anyway), but it sure does bother me to have folks into my usual disarray. Throwing things out of sight took a little time and effort! They arrived mid-afternoon and I was as ready as I was ever going to be, just giving up on what remained.

We sat and talked and talked and talked as only the three of us can. We talked about our lives, we talked about a recent church conference, we talked about God and plans and food supply v. population and nanotechnology (about which NONE of us has a clue, but we loved talking about it), and on and on—you can see that our conversation covered lots of ground. We had not been able to be together like this in a very long time, and few other people are wacky enough to tolerate these random wonderings and soundings. Really, we need each other for this.

I don’t think we moved from the table all evening except for short bathroom trips and when I got up to throw steaks on and heat the rest of the easy-fix dinner. It was fun, it was restful, and it was restorative.

M stayed the night and, after we talked til noon, I went out a couple of hours to ride first on the tractor, bush hogging, and then the lawn mower around the large yard to the side of my house. On those implements I do lots of thinking, and I thought a lot about the evening with my friends and how restful it all was in spite of my frantic cleaning frenzy.

In fact, I found myself thinking how restful my tractor and lawn mower were! It was hot (90’s), but the humming of the mowing, the smell of the grass and the visible strips of progress as the grass became shorter were all mesmerizingly relaxing! Such a paradox! Activity—even hot activity— can be restful, which led my ADD mind to consider the meaning of rest. I think that for me “rest” equates with “peace.”

Of course, the first Bible verse that comes to my mind when I think of rest is Jesus’ saying:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is
light. -- Matthew 11:28-30

I pretty-much know for a fact that Jesus did not mean exclusively the lying-on-the-couch kind of rest, here (although that can, obviously, be rest, too). He meant, rather something He calls “rest for your souls.” Again, for me, this equals “peace.”

I had considered just lying around all afternoon after M left, watching old movies and eating junk food rather than working in the hot sun. That actually sounded more like rest at first. I had earned this—it was easily justified after my stressful week with not enough time (besides, I have a lazy streak a MILE wide…). But, you know, that grass beckoned to me. It isn’t so much that I was stressed out about the state of my lawn and surroundings. It was more like the grass mowing was calling me in an alluring way, as something pleasant awaiting me.

So, off I went, because lying on the couch, while restful to my body, would not have been restful to my soul. It was the right choice. It gave me time to think about that nanotechnology thingy S was talking about last night. It was restful, and it was peaceful.

One of the paradoxes of the spirit! I loved being with my friends--even the work to prepare for them was restful...pure peace! - C