Work and Rest

"I wonder what the best present you ever got is?"

Both young and old looked at me and looked around and searched their minds. A child raised her hand:

"Life."

"Yes, that is a pretty good gift, isn't it? Anyone have something to top that?" I asked.

No, I don't think so. We laughed.

"Sometimes gifts are so big and so special, we don't even realize they are there. So, we have to go back to the beginning to remember them."

That's what we did yesterday. We went back to the beginning: we wondered about the creation story together.

But, this time I told it a little differently. Normally, I would lay the story out in pictures--left to right--day one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And leave it at that.

But light still shines, water still flows, the sky still hugs us, the ground still produces trees, the stars still map the heavens. It hasn't ended. It keeps going.

But we rest.

And then, we go again. Until we rest again. Going and resting, going and resting. It never stops.

So, I laid it out in a circle. I took a large round piece of cloth from another story: The Pearl of Great Price. Now, we can put the days in a circle.

"See? We put rest in the middle, then, six days around it and--

--oh, here's a surprise--

--rest surrounds the whole of creation now. Everything inside of rest!

I wonder what this could mean?"

Well...rest forms both the center and circumference of our lives.

"We do not rest one day so we may work six days. No, we work six days so we may rest One Day."

I wonder how we can rest in the midst of work?