Few places provide me the same peace, comfort, and quiet as the woods. There, the only sounds are leaves rustling, birds calling to one another, and the soft thump of my sneakers sinking into early spring dirt. I look up and around at the canopy that towers high above my head. Stooping down, there's a microcosm of insects that catch my eye, scurrying busily, perhaps unaware I'm watching.
When I began to live and work in other places, I realized I craved the rich greenery I grew up with. Looking out the windows on my train rides home after a long day in the city, I'd feel my mind slow its pace as I watched the scenery shift from a grey, concrete jungle to forests, alive and breathing.
During my 100 days at home, I felt my pace of life hasten. My penpal, Jenny, shared that students in France were facing a similar expectation to do more now that they had nowhere to go.
This quarantine marathon has been one that no one's run before. Without a pacemaker to follow, culture instructs us to "do what feels right," and two major lifestyles are reinforced - the never-ending hamster wheel or the complacent lazy river. As a Martha who struggles to keep her hands still and ambitions in check, I often find myself racing away, sprinting too fast for the long haul. The consistent battle I fight is to preserve my margin. Pastor Jon Tyson points out the irony that "many of us want peace in the world but do violence to ourselves by living at a fatal pace."
Though I've been called to give my time as a student, dietetic intern, research intern, daughter, sister, and friend, I can't fulfill my roles at the expense of my soul. Regular rest is a discipline I'm learning to develop as an adult. I didn't meet anyone who practiced a full day of rest until a few years ago.
Growing up, I had tutoring and music lessons every Saturday, Chinese school after church every Sunday. In high school and college, I'd spend my weekends studying. Now, I'm typing papers and coding research observations. And while my work can certainly become worship when I perform with an awareness of His presence, I'm always surprised by how even a mini sabbatical, a mere hour or two wandering through trees, can fuel me with a renewed excitement to dive into my work with the diligence and productivity I wouldn't have, had I continued to labor on.
Binary thinking tells me to take a full day of rest or none at all, and that's not true. I'm striving to carve out more tech-free, work-free time these days, but if a few hours each week is all I can muster, let's start from there.
Fortunately, in May, it was safe to step into the woods with a mask on. There, I stepped back from the work before me and walked with God, reconnecting with my childlike spirit of wonder and nurturing it.
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