A Ramble About Rest

     I was thinking today about rest. Frequently, when we use the word, we mean to physically rest, or sleep. But the truth is, a person can sleep more than eight hours, but still not feel rested. The truth is that the kinds of rest a person needs more often than not are mental, emotional, and spiritual. More sleep doesn't really help with these.     Of all the different kinds of rest, I think spiritual rest is the most important. It's also the hardest to comprehend and attain, because it gets confused with emotional and mental rest.
     The biggest obstacle to rest isn't labor. It's fear. Fear of something activates the stress response which keeps us from resting. It keeps us in an alert, survival state. Fear of loss, fear of something not getting done, fear of what the future might bring, and other fears conscious and subconscious all keep us from resting whether we know it or not.
     I was looking out at the back pasture today towards the trees that are now fully covered in green foliage for summer. The truth is the property we live on is a beautiful sight, and presents beautiful vistas from sunup to sundown and even after dark. But in spite of this, it's often hard for us to find the rest we need. Granted, there's a lot of work to do, but even when the day's labor is done and we fall into bed, many times it's hard to sleep and wake rested for the day even when we get to bed on time or early. A lot of this has to do with fear for what has happened or what might happen.
     A person might be in a paradaisical environment or in a hellish one, yet whether or not he or she is able to rest in it isn't dependent on the environment around him or her, it's dependent on whether they are in that fear survival response. As someone once said, "wherever you go, there you are." Or as Yoda told Luke when he asked what was in the dark spooky cave, "Only what you take with you." If what we take with us is fear, anxiety, or aggression there is no way we can rest no matter how peaceful and serene the environment. If we bring the issues which caused us to fear with us, then we will still be unable to rest regardless.
     Love brought to completion is what tosses fear outside. Fear can only be displaced fully by this love, because they cannot exist in the same space. It is only in love brought to completion that we are able to fully rest, to find cessation and just be, and this only comes from recognizing the presence of the One who is love surrounding you at all times, and not seeing Him as another threat, which can be our first impulse because of the fear of vengeance for our wrongs which we are taught. As John wrote, our first response to the Light can be to hate it, because it exposes the things we do in the darkness. We do not always stop to think that He wants to pull us from that darkness, not punish us for it.
     Being able to rest is a matter of recognizing the God who is Love as the foundation of everything that exists, and trusting that love in which you are constantly wrapped, and which forms the foundation of your own existence, physical or otherwise, as well. It is only this love which can drive away that survival response, as we come to understand that there is nothing which can truly harm us without our cooperation, and nothing which can or will deprive us of existence.