I had a friend, once upon a time ago, who always used to tell me “Sweetie, learn to wear life like a loose garment.” It’s an old expression, and one that I have spent countless hours of my life and spiritual practice trying to learn. Of course, all of that striving really defeated the purpose of the expression to begin with.
These days, I am at a place in my life where I understand what that expression means and feel as though, without boasting or feeling proud, that I am able to live it. Arriving in this place has less to do with me than with the God that I understand as operative in my life. I am always reminded of the saying of Jesus, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
These words, for me, work as a gentle reminder of my place in the life of God – a place of gentle surrender and trust – knowing that God, ultimately, is my place of rest. Those things that I am capable of striving and struggling to achieve don’t matter so much when I allow myself to rest completely and confidently in the presence of the One. As I like to say “resting in the Swift Sure Hand of God.”
I look around me today, in the lives of my closest companions, in the lives of family, and in the faces of strangers, the struggles so apparent in our lives. Fears for our security in an uncertain economy. Fears for our health in the face of skyrocketing costs. I see it in the faces of my LGBT brothers and sisters – the fear for our rights or the lack of them – and what that means for our future or the futures of our families. I see it in the faces of my fellow church members as the Anglican Communion threatens to fly apart at he seams, as the numbers of folks in the pews dwindles, and as the face of intolerant right-wing extremism plays the dominant role of the Christian faith in the public sphere.
Our fears can consume us well before they motivate us to action. Fear can paralyze. And likewise restlessness, struggle, doubt, and uncertainty can rear their heads and rob us of our humanity as we spend our time trying to break even or get ahead, or even in trying to cope.
That is a life of patterns that I, too, can easily fall back into. But it is not a life that I consciously choose. I find myself having chosen it when I allow doubt and fear to rule rather than faith and love. A faith and a love that, by my OWN experience, has proven to me time and again that I need not fear. All will be well.
So, I have finally accepted for myself a life of rest. A life of trust in the God of my understanding. And the results in my life are startling. Not because I have everything I want – which, by the way, I don’t. But I do have everything I need and enough to share with others. Not because there is economic certainty about the future – which there isn’t. Not because there isn’t sorrow and sadness in my life at present and certainly in my future.
But because I am resting from the fear and worry about these things. Resting now so that when future challenge comes along, my God will be there in the midst of it with me giving me a strength forged in the deep silence of my heart where – for so long now – we have enjoyed sitting in one another’s company.
I am resting from self-doubt and judgment. Not because I do not have flaws, but because they do not ultimately matter. I have struggled with my greater demons and overcome them by the grace of God, and now I simply swat at flies which, while not inconsequential, are not earth shattering or monstrous. Merely distracting.
I am resting from pride and greed and lust and anger other false idols that I have, in the past, put in the place of God. It is not that these things are not present in my life, but simply that I know their names, and I know their faces, and I know their hunger, and I choose not to feed them. Because I have learned that when these gods, however false, fail to live up to the expectation of reward, that the experience compromises our ability to trust in the God that truly matters to us.
The sages and the mages have it right when they tell you that perseverance is the key to spiritual peace. For while we work and wait upon the world to change, while we toil in the Garden of our spirits trying to clear a space – then we discover that, when we thought we were waiting for God, God was already there waiting for us (and secretly doing most of the heavy lifting). Waiting for us to notice and smile and take a breather.
So that is what I’m doing these days. Taking a breather, with an ice cold lemonade, wearing my loose garment and laying in a hammock in the Garden with God. And I am resting.
A Loose Garment
I had a friend, once upon a time ago, who always used to tell me “Sweetie, learn to wear life like a loose garment.” It’s an old expression, and one that I have spent countless hours of my life and spiritual practice trying to learn. Of course, all of that striving really defeated the purpose of the expression to begin with.
These days, I am at a place in my life where I understand what that expression means and feel as though, without boasting or feeling proud, that I am able to live it. Arriving in this place has less to do with me than with the God that I understand as operative in my life. I am always reminded of the saying of Jesus, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
These words, for me, work as a gentle reminder of my place in the life of God – a place of gentle surrender and trust – knowing that God, ultimately, is my place of rest. Those things that I am capable of striving and struggling to achieve don’t matter so much when I allow myself to rest completely and confidently in the presence of the One. As I like to say “resting in the Swift Sure Hand of God.”
I look around me today, in the lives of my closest companions, in the lives of family, and in the faces of strangers, the struggles so apparent in our lives. Fears for our security in an uncertain economy. Fears for our health in the face of skyrocketing costs. I see it in the faces of my LGBT brothers and sisters – the fear for our rights or the lack of them – and what that means for our future or the futures of our families. I see it in the faces of my fellow church members as the Anglican Communion threatens to fly apart at he seams, as the numbers of folks in the pews dwindles, and as the face of intolerant right-wing extremism plays the dominant role of the Christian faith in the public sphere.
Our fears can consume us well before they motivate us to action. Fear can paralyze. And likewise restlessness, struggle, doubt, and uncertainty can rear their heads and rob us of our humanity as we spend our time trying to break even or get ahead, or even in trying to cope.
That is a life of patterns that I, too, can easily fall back into. But it is not a life that I consciously choose. I find myself having chosen it when I allow doubt and fear to rule rather than faith and love. A faith and a love that, by my OWN experience, has proven to me time and again that I need not fear. All will be well.
So, I have finally accepted for myself a life of rest. A life of trust in the God of my understanding. And the results in my life are startling. Not because I have everything I want – which, by the way, I don’t. But I do have everything I need and enough to share with others. Not because there is economic certainty about the future – which there isn’t. Not because there isn’t sorrow and sadness in my life at present and certainly in my future.
But because I am resting from the fear and worry about these things. Resting now so that when future challenge comes along, my God will be there in the midst of it with me giving me a strength forged in the deep silence of my heart where – for so long now – we have enjoyed sitting in one another’s company.
I am resting from self-doubt and judgment. Not because I do not have flaws, but because they do not ultimately matter. I have struggled with my greater demons and overcome them by the grace of God, and now I simply swat at flies which, while not inconsequential, are not earth shattering or monstrous. Merely distracting.
I am resting from pride and greed and lust and anger other false idols that I have, in the past, put in the place of God. It is not that these things are not present in my life, but simply that I know their names, and I know their faces, and I know their hunger, and I choose not to feed them. Because I have learned that when these gods, however false, fail to live up to the expectation of reward, that the experience compromises our ability to trust in the God that truly matters to us.
The sages and the mages have it right when they tell you that perseverance is the key to spiritual peace. For while we work and wait upon the world to change, while we toil in the Garden of our spirits trying to clear a space – then we discover that, when we thought we were waiting for God, God was already there waiting for us (and secretly doing most of the heavy lifting). Waiting for us to notice and smile and take a breather.
So that is what I’m doing these days. Taking a breather, with an ice cold lemonade, wearing my loose garment and laying in a hammock in the Garden with God. And I am resting.