Rest as Resistance
The music from the stadium was so loud I could barely hear the therapist. Definitely not an ideal place to dive deep into the attic storage of your heart and dust off the boxes labeled “I don’t belong” and “I limit my own connection to others.” But here I was, doing the thing. These particular boxes were crusted over with the tears of many sleepless nights and torn relationships, and I wasn’t truly keen on opening them in between the cessation of daily work and the midweek church service that I was about to attend. Between drones of bass and kickdrums something my therapist said stood out. “Trauma is marked by the indicators of lack and urgency. If we can separate ourselves from those things, it can help us be free to have healthy connection and belonging.” To be honest, I don’t remember much else from the session. But those sentences stuck out to me. (Shout out to therapists everywhere who are leading people to healing one sentence at a time.)
Lack and Urgency. I repeated those two words to myself. They haunted the recesses of my recall, begging me to investigate where I had seen this theme before. I reflected on my recent study on Deuteronomic History. As I have been studying the books of Exodus and Numbers, I noticed this same thread in the stories of early Israel. Coming out of slavery, the Israelites had lacked proper working conditions, agency, autonomy, etc. Soon after the exodus, they were given a command to help them break the cycle of Lack and Urgency. They wouldn’t have known any other way of living, so they were still bound to psychological bondage even though they had physically escaped. A major command from God was to have a rest day that they called the Sabbath. A command to rest. Interesting. But rest is resistance to Lack and Urgency. It’s an act of defiance to a voice that says, “You’re behind,” “Work harder,” “You don’t have enough– YOU aren’t enough.” Rest communicates that you are cared for; you are loved. Rest says that abundance is available for you. Rest is a partner with peace. Rest reminds you that you aren’t in bondage fearing for your survival, but you have agency and autonomy to make courageous choices. If you know the story of Numbers, you will remember that the cycle of Lack and Urgency was not sufficiently broken and returned when Israel complained that they would never have any food and water and would die in the wilderness. Rest is an interruption to a soul-crushing cycle known commonly as “the grind.” It’s hard to trust that we will be cared for when our survival feels as if it’s on the line. I think this is the essence of faith. Resting and trusting in divine protection in a world where our survival and the survival of those we love feels like it's on the line.
More reflection on this led me to the well-beloved Psalm 23. I noticed the chiasm rested on the crux “He restores my soul”. A chiasm is a literary device in Hebrew literature where the words/ideas/phrases are stated and repeated in inverted parallelism. Chiasms are often used to point to and emphasize a point.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
The psalmist uses the declaration that Divinity is caring for him as the premise for the reasoning that he will not lack anything. There is no running through green pastures to get to still waters, but the abundance of them lead the sheep to peacefully take what they need and take their time along the way. I think it’s reasonable to suggest that the abundance and the rest are the tools used to restore the soul.
He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
The opposite of green pastures is a dark valley and the presence of enemies, but even here there is favor and abundance symbolized with an overflowing cup.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.
The word translated “follow” in English actually means to pursue or chase in the original Hebrew. Goodness and mercy are chasing the author down to give him stability and peace. Certainly no lack there.
With many of the readers of this blog, I have felt that the geopolitical climate has created a sense of urgency and fear of not having enough– and certainly there are many injustices to stand against. I do not think that resting and trusting is an excuse to be naïve, passive, or apathetic. But being a slave to Lack and Urgency keeps us from really being able to live in autonomy and agency, thus preventing us from really being effective at pushing back darkness.
In a world so loud we can barely hear our own thoughts, much less the words of healers attempting to point us to whole-hearted living, rest and trust ground us. Reveling in the abundance of the Good Shepherd and trusting that even in the dark shadows the good path holds rest, stability, and peace for us leads us to a world where belonging and connection are the currency. May we all go in peace to love and serve the Lord.