Rest is Resistance Week 6

For many of us clergy, overwork may be a sign of PRAGMATIC ATHEISM. We don’t trust God enough to rest, leaving what is undone in God’s care

How do you make space to transcend the confines of a system that prays to the call of ‘profit over people’?” p. 56
1 King 19:4-7
Romans 8:22-26
Grief & Healing

Call to Worship
(Breathe in) I will give space
(Breathe out) I will let go

Prayer of the Day
God,
we have crammed
so much into our lives
we do not leave much
room.
What thousands of stories
are untold, because
we are not rested?
What work is the world
groaning towards
already?
What dreamwork
did Elijah do
under the fig tree?
Let us find more
space for all work
to be done
without us
we pray.
Amen.

Call to Confession: Let us turn towards God, and open our hearts to pour out any hurt and grief we might have, so that God can wipe away our tears and renew our hope.

Prayer of Confession: God, we confess that we are tightly hanging onto so much–that it is hard to let the Holy Spirit in. We feel like we need the perfect words or actions. We feel like we need to always be co-creating with you to get things right. We are afraid to stop. Afraid of what we will see when we rest. Give us the courage to rest. Tell us it’s ok to stop, remind us that the Holy Spirit will fill in all of the gaps. Grant us the trust we need we pray. (Silent Confession) Amen.

Assurance of Pardon: The Holy Spirit is here, filling our hearts anew, granting us all the mercy we need, so let us assure one another of the Good News: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

Suggested Rest Practices:
Make a Dream Journal
Make a Not To Do List, Rip it up or Burn it
Dismiss everyone to Take a walk/Quiet Sitting time for 10 minutes
Play with Playdo/Clay
Create a Grief Wall/Ribbon Weaving Symbolizing everything to let go of
Have everyone commit to one time they are going to rest that week
Share around the room/small groups/on paper a new rest practice they have started (Fit your needs to the extravert/introvert nature of your reality)
Go Outside and look at the Clouds

If you appreciate my work, please support my D. Min in Creative Writing. I am in my final year and raising money here: https://gofund.me/391febb1

Notes

“My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn’t look well. But my uncle says they was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn’t want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think. So they ran off with the porches. And the gardens, too. Not many gardens any more to sit around in. And look at the furniture. No rocking chairs any more. They’re too comfortable. Get people up and running around” -Ray Bradbury; Book Farenheit 451

Art a man in a white beard, snooze-like, sitting on a porch. Photograph by Sonny Lee

People miss small talk in the Pandemic (and how that might be feeding into the violence of today): https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/opinion/coronavirus-small-talk.html, https://hbr.org/2021/03/remote-workers-need-small-talk-too, https://www.khaleejtimes.com/long-reads/the-big-power-of-small-talk, https://www.thestar.com/life/parent/opinion/2021/05/18/small-talk-is-the-glue-that-keeps-society-running-and-gossip-is-a-force-for-good-i-miss-both.html?rf (Google it, there are so MANY articles)

Week 6 Notes

Grief and Healing

“Capitalism was created on plantations. We as a culture class over this historical truth. We must grieve. Grieving is a sacred act and one of the ways we can begin to reconnect with out bodies, as we craft a rest practice.” p. 15

“A mind shift, a slow and constant practice filled with grace” p. 16

We should use every tool we have to constantly repair what grind culture has done to us” p. 16

Embrace knowing that you have been manipulated and scammed by a violent system as powerful evidence. Now with this knowledge you can grieve, repair, rest, and heal.” p. 17

“Resting is ancient, slow and connected work that will take hold of you in ways that may be surprising. Let deprogramming from grind culture surprise you. Let your entire being slowly begin to shift. Get lost in rest. Pull up the blankets, search for softness and be open to the ways rest will surprise and calm you.” p. 17

“We have been trained to believe that everything we accomplish is is because of our own pushing alone. This is false because there is a spiritual dimension that exists in all things and in everything we do. To understand that we are spiritual beings navigating life in a material world opens us to the possibility os rest as a spiritual practice. Our entire living is a spiritual practices. Much of our resistance to rest, sleep and slowing down is an ego problem….We can do nothing alone.” p. 18

“Grind culture has traumatized us and then begin the lifelong process of healing from this trauma. This work is about more than simply naps and sleep, it is a full unraveling from the grips of our toxic understanding of our self-worth as divine human beings. Grieving in this culture is not done and is seen as a waste of time because grieving is a powerful place of reverence and liberation.” p. 28

“A grieving person is a healed person. Can you guess why our culture does not want a healed person in it?” p. 28

“I believe the powers that be don’t want us rested because they know that if we rest enough, we are going to figure out what is really happening and overturn the entire system.” p. 29

Black Ancestors “They straddled the lines between exhaustion and always thriving. They moved mountains with their faith alone and created pathways for invention that I am still uncovering. They resisted every moment by exiting in a world that was not welcoming or caring.” p. 46

“Sunday was not a day of rest for my parents, especially my father. It was a day of working tirelessly for the Lord.” p. 49

“Sunday was not a day of rest for my parents, especially my father. It was a day of working tirelessly for the Lord.” p. 49 (Revenge Waking)

“His love of community and God fueled him endlessly, but the toxic side to this passion was his overworking, exhaustion, and lack of caring for his body.” p. 51

“Grind culture killed my father and is killing us physically and spiritually. Sleep deprivation is a public health issue and racial justice issue.” p. 54

“It is firm evidence that we as a culture don’t have clarity about what rest is and can be.” p. 55

“We are born knowing how to rest and listen to what our bodies need…This inner knowing is slowly stolen form us as we replace it with disconnection. We have been bamboozled and led astray by a culture without a pulse button.” p. 55

“Everything we believe we know about rest is false.” p. 55

World is groaning/birthing (grieving) and systematically trying to give birth to a new one, we need to rest and let it do its thing: Romans

“I know that saving my own life from the exhaustion of racism, poverty, and sexism made space for all, no matter their race, to also begin dismantling process from these systems.” 

“I know that my visualizations of what a world without capitalism and oppression looks like is based on something I have never experienced in this lifetime. IT is dreamworld and alchemy. p. 57

“In postmodern womanist theology, salvation is an activity… A postmodern womanist theory strives for tangible representations of good. The good includes justice, equality, discipleship, quality of life, acceptance and inclusion” Monica Coleman p. 58 

“Yes the system continues raging and destroying, but we will not be able to tap into spaces of freedom, joy , and rest by pushing our precious bodies and minds in abusive ways. To rest is to creatively respond to grind culture’s call to do more. It’s the possibility of rest, reparations, resurrection, and repair that holds us like a warm, soft blanket. “ p. 59

“How do we transform grief to power?” p. 59 grief article https://pres-outlook.org/2023/05/grief-as-innovation/?fbclid=IwAR0-hhwOI0DYgJoZq-PE5g1OMEten2iGyq5kyYwJii6ozZWqfQgNYHJAV_w

“There is space to just allow rest to settle and answer the questions for us.” p. 60

“We must remain committed to building community and go into the deepest cracks to gather and care for anyone left behind. Trading each other and ourselves and with care isn’t a luxury, but an absolute necessity if we’re going to thrive. Resting isn’t an afterthought, but a basic part of being human.” p. 61

We must make space for rest in small and large ways.” p. 61 Make room for the Holy Spirit–is this what that phrase means? Make room for hope, is this what this means?

CORRECTION “The concept of filling up your cup first so you can have enough in it to put to others feels off balance. It reeks of language that is part of our daily mantra. Language like ‘I will sleep when I am dead,’ “rise and grind,’” and is geared to women p.62 esp. marginalized!!! 

“I propose that the cups all be broken into little pieces” Something about communion here p. 63 

“I don’t want to pour anymore. p 63

Week 6 Rage Notes

“fig tree was the private preface to the very public force of anger in the temple the face of injustice and exclusion, we meet a God of holy, premeditated, bodily, unapologetic rage.”  p. 109

“What does it mean that Christ doesn’t just scream but also physically overturns tables? What does it mean that Christ doesn’t just lament the bare fig tree but damns it, leaving his followers with gaping mouth and no immediate resolution?” p. 109

“I like that GOd doesn’t play or talk nice to the hands of injustice.” “I can name very few instances (none, arguable) of a niceness in God, and yet this is the demand of the oppressor will always make of us. p. 110

“I’ve determined I will no longer settle for mere articulation of anger. I want to feel my voice shake and the warmth cree up up my spine.” p. 111

“I remember when I first read the psalmist begin God to break the teeth of his enemies…Anger expressed in the interior life is permitted to exist in its rawest and most honest form.” p. 113

“If you read the psalms, you’ll find no small number of them committed to rage. Calling for a creditor to seize money from the oppressors, begging for bones to broken, enemies to be wiped out, their descendants punished. These imprecatory psalms were a liberation to me because they finally told me the truth—that is, I belong to a God capable of holding the ugliest parts of my anger.” p. 113

Private anger doesn’t have to be public, but our wounds can be seen, and some anger, on behalf of the dignity of others can be justified p. 114 

Justifiable Anger is amazing, but you have to have a care that it doesn’t turn to hate. Hatred should only be directed towards evil and not creation, very fragile and difficult to contain towards where its meant to be p. 114

Scream when you need to