Taking Time to Stop

She goes and she goes and she goes.  And then she stops.

I am blessed with two aunts over the age of 90 and a few more who are merely in their 70s/80s.  Actually, my Aunt Sarah turned 100 on Monday. Maybe I’ll be there one day and maybe I won’t.

At a family event in the past year, the daughter of one of these national treasures told me that she’s glad her mother could be there, but it will take her about three days to recover.  As we age, it takes longer to bounce back.

Lent is a good time to take time.  I find that I need it to recover from things that didn’t require recovery before:

• Weekend retreats.
• The death of loved ones’ loved ones.
• The news.

It used to be true that I only needed to recover from traumatic things closer to home.

Recovery language is used for everything from physical illness (including addictions) to trauma to ordinary grief – if there is such a thing as ordinary grief.  I tend to recover by stopping.  I just stop.

When was the last time you simply stopped?  It’s really hard to do if you are a Type A person who judges herself by how much she gets done out there.  I watch Randall on This is Us and want to yell “Go take a nap.  You are worth having around even if you stop working/worrying/providing.”  And there are those who will only stop when they get sick.  And then there are those who don’t stop when they get sick.

We might need to stop today.  Stop spinning.  Stop running.  Stop bouncing.  Yes, taking Sabbath is one of the big ten, but stopping is beyond Sabbath.  Stopping is stopping.  No phones.  No social media.  No cleaning up. No appointments.

It’s the second day of Lent.  We don’t think we can afford to stop, but we can – if only for a little chunk of time today.

Image of a piece of whirling silica which apparently can spin faster than anything else on earth but I don’t really understand the science.  Top quote is from my father about his FBC.