"What do you do?"

I had a really good DComm meeting today. One of the questions that got me thinking was "what do you do to relax?" I truly believe that this question came from a place of deep concerns for me and the pace at which it appears I live my life.

As I sat in my car reflecting more on this question after my meeting two thoughts popped into my mind. First, its really hard for me to answer a question like this and when I do it never meets people's expectations. Unless people know me very well they think I'm an extrovert which I'm not. I find peace in alone time - taking walks and reading. But in the car, I realized that I relax by doing the things that I do naturally - cooking, cleaning, sewing, writing letters to friends. It is in those everyday activities where I find freedom, peace, rest, and wholeness, even if it just seems like busy or mundane work to others, I find rejuvenation it them, not busyness.

Secondly, I find it ironic that people ask what we "do" in order to rest. It seems contradictory, especially to me. I find that rest comes from just being, not focusing on a list of what to do. I think that's what I love the most about Sabbath, we just be, and do not produce. At the end of the interview I was asked what I was going to do when I got home, and I couldn't really answer. I didn't know. These past two weeks and the week to come are three weeks of Sabbath, not living by a time schedule or a to list or doing/ production, but fully being - and embracing the beauty that comes from it.