Time of Rest

Times of Rest

 Linda and I drove to Duck, North Carolina yesterday; we were joined by Linda’s brother, Karl, and our son, Cordis. Our daughter, Megan, and her husband, Joe, will join us on Tuesday.

It is a time for rest and relaxation. Presently, I am sitting in a dining nook, overlooking the bay. Being on the top floor, we can see quite a distance. It is a beautiful morning, but a little muggy. I had the chance at midnight to go out on the deck and be totally floored by the vista that stood before me. I looked up and saw stars, stars, and stars. I was reminded of the scene in Roots when Kunta Kinte was born; his father took him from the hut, offered the child up to the heavens, and said, “Behold, the only thing greater than you.”

I was completely in awe of the pageantry of the skies. I was reminded that in the known, or unknown, universe there are 600 billion trillion stars. Each star is a sun, perhaps similar to the one we recognize when we arise each morning. Six hundred billion trillion, I cannot perceive the size of the universe. What I am sure of is that we are probably under-counting the number. That is one of the limitations that as humans we are prone to suffer.

Six hundred billion trillions suns, each the center of a constellation, perhaps just like ours, with a planet int hat constellation called Earth.

Are they all inhabited by humans? There may be life forms similar, or completely different than what we know as living, intelligent beings. (I will not comment on our intelligence!)

That’s a lot of brothers and sisters in God’s universe!

As I am looking at the serenity of the waters in the bay, I remind myself that life does not have to be as violent as it is. And, I am not talking of gun or street violent. I am thinking about how upset our lives can be because we place obstacles in front of us no matter what we do. Most of these are man made and can be avoided, but only if we take the time to reason what is best, not what is more convenient.

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. How true to our lives this is. We tend to follow this wind aimlessly without thinking. I ask if our lives are as frivolous as these esoteric breezes. Where do we come from; where are we going? These are questions that we refuse to acknowledge. Do we know where we are going? I do not mean up the corporate ladder or seeking some political or non-political office. Why do we allow our impatience to govern our lives?

I am retired, but I still have the where am I going pressures that seem to invade my thoughts every day. What do I want to accomplish? What can I do to help others? What is God asking of me? This last one is the reason why I think we need more time to rest. Everyone who is born is a child of God. It is only in my time of rest that I can meditate on this truth.

As Linda and I were lying in bed this morning, thinking of the day ahead. She asked what are we going to do all week. How can we last a whole week on Duck without doing anything? I said that we could always leave early. We don’t have to stay the entire week. We can return to Fredericksburg and rejoin the convoluted days of pressure and dissatisfaction. We can reload the pressures on us to perform.

But no; we must find it in ourselves to truly relax, to truly take this time of rest for regeneration. None of us know what lies ahead. Just as with the wind, we really do not know where we will be one year from now, or ten years from now. We must place our very beings into that which created us. We have free will to do what we want, but we must recognize the paths laid before us.

Can we rest? Truly rest?

God bless you all and have a restful day this first Saturday in August.