Tonight I am simply grateful to be at the end of a work week. Tomorrow I will sleep in until about 7:30–a good two hours later than my normal rising time. I gradually shifted from waking at 6:15 a.m. to eventually waking and rising by 5:15 on weekdays. I’ve now been rising at 5:15 for over a year. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve truly altered my body rhythms (I used to be a “night owl”) or if I am simply now chronically sleep deprived. It’s probably actually a little of both. So by the end of the work week I am usually pretty wiped out. This week is no exception.
Reflecting over the past few days I have to acknowledge that it’s been a bit of a strain and I am relieved to have these two days away from work. As much as I’d like to say that I will relax and rest this weekend, I have a lot of things I need to do in preparation for the week ahead–reports to be completed and other things I didn’t complete during the week but that still need to be done for work and things I need to do around home. I will deal with that all tomorrow; for tonight I am going to rest.
Ever since I was a child I wanted to create a retreat center, a place where people who were burned out, weary, hurting could find quiet and peace for a time before returning back to the noisy world. Part retreat, part working farm, part everything that I felt like I needed in my own life, it remains in my consciousness, more dream than practical reality. I thought I’d call it something like, “Come and Rest,” the name partly inspired by the book, “Rest and Be Thankful,” written by Helen MacInnes back in 1949. I read it as a teenager and parts of it captured my imagination. In my college days I wrote a song–I can’t remember what I called it–that said “I want to find myself a place, where I can be alone/a place where I can call the land my own/A place where I can be anything that I want to be/a place where I can live and be free. /Such a place exists somewhere /And when I find it I’m going there/ A place where I won’t have a care/I’ll pack my bags and I’m halfway there.” Clearly there’s a theme in there. It seems I’ve always been seeking rest and refreshing.
Tonight as I write, my window open allowing the cool, autumn-like air and the noisy night sounds to once again enter my space, I momentarily close my eyes and remember that song (written over 35 years ago) and remember that place that right now exists only in my mind. As my mind and my life continue to be noisy and chaotic, “Come and Rest” sounds pretty inviting.
I am grateful to be at the end of this week. It feels a bit like I’ve been in a 12-round boxing match that ended in a draw. I took a few shots, perhaps delivered a few, and at the end of the match, I’m still standing, wobbly, but upright. At the end of the day, that’s pretty good. As I wind down this day at the end of this week, I do so with gratitude. Everything is not perfect in my life, far from it in fact. But in an odd way, in this moment, everything is good. It’s a paradox that I will leave to explain another day. Suffice it to say that in this moment, it’s all good, and in truth all I have is this moment. I will close with a quote I use a lot because it speaks directly and simply what keeps me going on the path of gratitude:
“If the only prayer you ever say is ‘thank you,’ that would be sufficient.” ~Meister Eckhart