Today as I’m writing this, I have chosen to spend the day away from all my responsibilities and tasks, and instead focus solely on what brings me joy and rejuvenates my soul. I call this practice Sabbath, after the tradition enumerated in the Hebrew Bible that for six days one should work, but on the seventh, one should rest.
Although I aspire to a weekly Sabbath, I do not always live into that ideal. Even though I do find it rejuvenating to write, it technically is a responsibility that I am fulfilling today and that I could put aside. So, as they say – do as I say, not as I do.
Later this month, I’ll be celebrating my birthday with a Rest and Revolution day. This day reminds me that rest is revolutionary – As the 13th Doctor said “I am not yet who I am.” We are all still learning, growing and becoming more of who we are, and an essential part of growth is taking rest so that our mind and our body can grow around what we are learning and changing in our life. Rest is Restorative.
Restoration is Revolutionary in a capitalistic society that requires constant monetization and productivity to form the primary if not sole means of producing value. The reality is that there is value in being a living breathing being on this rock of magma and grass and water flying through space faster than we humans can comprehend. There is value in producing art and in hobbies and in rest. There is value in finding time and ways to be, just for the sake of being, without any of the other benefits that being gives us.
Rest, the practice of being for the sake of being, is revolutionary.
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