Last year, I was walking with my uncle in Frankfurt along the Main river in Germany, which goes through Frankfurt. As we had been walking for 20 kilometers, he wanted to rest. As we sat, he mentioned a story emphasizing the importance of taking rests regularly. So I tracked down the source of this story, and it led to a quote from a beautifully written book called Sabbath:
The story is told of a South American tribe that went on a long march, day after day, when all of a sudden they would stop walking, sit down to rest for a while, and then make camp for a couple of days before going any farther. They explained that they needed the time of rest so that their souls could catch up with them.
So, what does Sabbath mean? It’s a Judeo-Christian practice where one day a week, people stop what they are doing and rest. They don’t just put their phones aside and spend time with their family, build something just for fun, then finish the day Netflix & Chilling with the wifey. No, they rest hardcore. Like really hardcore. Here are some of the rules:
– No working (obviously)
– No electricity
– No carrying
– No sewing
– No building
– No cooking
– No driving
… And so on. The need for such a strict rest might be familiar to you. Remember the day after a heavy drinking session with friends, or the mornings after an exhausting day. You just don’t want to do anything, perhaps other than scrolling through social media apps to eternity. That’s fair though. Likewise, the origin of the Sabbath also comes from an exhausting work week, but not from a regular human work week. It’s the work week of the God, where He takes a rest after He creates the Heaven and the Earth, as mentioned in the Book of Genesis:
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
This is the first time Sabbath is mentioned in written texts. Although there is much debate in the Palaeolithic history, it’s also not surprising when humans were hunter-and-gatherers, they probably hunted, did their daily chores, and rested for the rest of the day. I can only imagine that the need to rest comes later in the stage, when we decided to focus on efficiency with the developments of agriculture and industrial revolution, rather than survive & chill. Regardless, this resting culture has been with us for centuries, with different names and styles, and I want to extract wisdom from it.
In Buddhism, it is “uposatha”. It is the “cleansing of the defiled mind through the proper technique”. In the uposatha days, Buddhists take a rest from all responsibilities and they just observe. They observe their thoughts, their actions, and they reflect upon them. In other words, they meditate in silence. In Islam, although there is not a single full-day to rest, there is the Jum’ah prayer. Each Friday, Muslims take a rest from their responsibilities and pray together. Also, they pray five times a day, every single day. I interpret it as taking small rests throughout the day, being present with Allah, which can be meditative. Early Christians rested on Sundays to celebrate the day of Jesus’s resurrection. Then, Roman emperor Constantine made it mandatory to rest and attend Church on Sundays, when he converted to Christianity.
Although streamlining resting in religious practices helps the society, we should cultivate our resting ritual. Otherwise, it the “mandatoriness” might take all the fun away. In my opinion, the main thing with the rest is to tailor it to our lives. When was the last time we rested? Like, actually rested? I am not talking about the day we spend the entire day at home with a constantly-beeping phone, checking out Instagram stories, switching to some Youtube videos, then perhaps some Netflix episodes. When was the last time we felt our inner peace? Our soul nourishing, regardless of the (unexpected) circumstances? If such unexpected circumstances are unavoidable, why don’t we have regularly scheduled resting rituals?
It turns out that Jesus was known to disappear in the middle of the day from time to time, apparently to heal himself, even though there were people who needed his help constantly. He understood that taking care of himself was a prerequisite to taking care of others, as it’s mentioned throughout different gospels:
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. [Mark 1:35]
But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. [Matthew 14:13]
Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. [Mark 6:31]
Regardless of which religion or ideology you believe in, ancient texts have wisdom on living a good life. They are the summary of all the tried-and-failed and tried-and-successful lessons of humanity. Also, I don’t think we need much convincing to know that we need to rest. Like many things, the need for rest is in plain sight, yet we tend to skip it.
In this day and age, it gets harder for us to rest. All the notifications, the group chats, constant scrolling, the fear of missing out, and those red notification buttons. This fake sense of busyness gives us a sense of importance, or provides us with an escape from unwanted thoughts and feelings. It is a well-established neuroscientific factthat whenever we check social media, it’s not just a couple of friends and funny videos, it’s a constant bombardment of information. Our brain cannot identify that leisure time on social media as “leisure” or “resting”. It constantly processes information, not allowing us to stop and breathe in silence.
This week, I wanted to remind you (and myself) to just stop. To take a deep breath. To sleep. To take a brief walk without any technology. To mute that group chat. To take a stop from online shopping. To take a break from constant consumption of things that we don’t need. To spend one morning with ourselves, facing the sticky thoughts we try to avoid for so long. To stop resisting, surrender to our body, which desperately wants to rest. To walk slowly, so that our soul can catch up with us. As Gandhi pointed out many years ago, there is more to life than merely increasing its speed.
Best regards,
Bugra