No Rest

I spent last week on Prince Edwards Island in Canada.  Where it was unseasonably cool, but absolutely beautiful.  We camped at a little camp ground on the Western side of the Island, facing the Northumberland strait. We were in a quiet little cove and our site abutted the water.  I woke up in the morning to the sound of the waves slapping the small embankment that lead from our site down to the water. The grass was emerald green and the sky and the water were the bluest blue and the sand was brilliant red.  It was as if the world was a ball gown made of the finest blue silk on which the most exquisite broach was pinned, the stone, the most delicate green emerald set in an unimaginably red rose gold setting.  It was truly a fairyland and for one week a tiny piece of it was ours.

I was on Prince Edwards Island surrounded by natural beauty, a palpable calm and filled with joy to get to be where I was at that very moment, and I was far, far away from all the happenings which stained this country. Far, far away, does not mean out of touch, or unaware. I was amazed at how much the public radio on PEI talked about what was going on with Hilary and Trump at the beginning of the week. I did not realize people outside the US cared at all, much less enough for it to make a deal out of things done by one and said by the other. I was used to hearing the distanced perspective by the time I began to hear news of shootings, one, then two and then many!

I was living a life of rest in a fairy world made of nothing but beauty and peace and the real world was crashing and burning. We weekended with friends in Maine, as we made way back to Boston, and I sat and listened to another pastor preach a heartfelt sermon to his congregation trying to make sense of the violence and the broken society which birthed it and then provide his people with avenues of Christian response and responsibility in the midst of it all.

And I am away.  I am in the midst of my summer at rest.  I am removed from my "normal" life.  I am removed from my congregation.  I was not there for them when 50 young people were gunned down in Florida and I was not there with them as the events unfolded last week. I do not know the ways in which their hearts are breaking. I am not there to walk through this quagmire with them.  I know they are in good hands. I trust the servant of God who is with them, who is pastoring them in my absense.  

But because I am not there with them, because I can not hear how these events, which have occurred thus far this summer, are intersecting their lives, I find I am uneasy in my rest. It is almost as if I feel that I can not rest, when I know they are not finding rest.

But it is more than them.  How can I rest, when the world around me is not at rest? How can I live in a fairy world painted in green, red, and blue when the world around me lives in a real world painted in nothing but blood, violence, and hatred? Our world is so broken. How can I rest? People in the world around me find no rest. People I know find no rest. People I love find no rest. 

When there is no rest, how do I rest? How can any of us rest when there is no justice, when there is no end to the violence, when piece by piece the world around us crumbles and falls and only the privileged few find they have solid ground on which to stand? What does it mean to find rest, in a world where there is none. Who am I, if I manage to steal some? I stood on solid ground, in a brightly painted dream world, far, far, away.  And I looked down and saw the ground crumble beneath the feet of others all around. 

In my privilege, I sat under the sky and read stories to my girls, took them to see the homes of a storybook child and visited the birthplace of a woman who created an imaginary world which so many of us love. And I return, and try to fill a void I can not fill with words I probably have no right to write, but I know not what else to do? 

I am uneasy. My heart is troubled. 

I remember the promises of the Lord to give rest.

"My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." Ex 33:14

"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,

   and I will give you rest." Mt 11:28

Give us rest!

Lord hear my prayer.