In the summer before I started my under-grad degree, I worked in the equipment yard for an engineering and construction company. The shop foreman assigned me a lot of jobs that involved paint. Spray paint the company colours on all those tools. Re-paint the lines on the parking lot at the corporate office. (An after-hours job, when the shirts and ties had gone home.) Paint the sheet metal fencing that hemmed in the equipment yard. (Including re-tracing the three-foot high letters of the company name, that had originally been done by an actual sign-painter.)
What those tasks had in common, besides paint, was at the end of the day, I could actually see the proof of my labours. (And not just from the spills and smears on my work clothes.)
The Good Courage writer for today, the Rev. Nora Vedress described taking a Covid enforced rest from her regular full and fast paced life.
Often, my first reaction when I hear or read a clergy colleague sharing on the topic of their busyness, is to feel like I am not doing enough.
It’s not as if I can look to a pile of freshly painted mallets and power tools, and exclaim, ” look what I did! “
The exercise suggested for today, to list the top five things that take my energy had a similiar effect- to make me wonder what I actually do in a day.
As I read further in the devotion, I could see the writer was working towards getting her readers to think about taking Sabbath, necessary and restorative rest time.
I wonder if I was the only reader for whom the devotion had the opposite effect, to leave me wondering if I do enough to “deserve” a rest.
I had to take a few breaths, and remind myself that there are acually things I do, that make a difference.
Darrow Woods: Writer of Things 