The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche occasionally is to let it rest, wander . . . Not try to do or be anything. (May Sarton)
Oh, rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.
One of the hardest things I think I have ever tried to do is to be “retired.” It is going on five years now since I retired from my professional life of teaching and practice, and I still don’t know what to make of it, this business of retirement. I have prayed for opportunities to be of service somehow, to still “give back,” to Do. And what always comes, is to be here now, in this moment, Being. What a surprise this has been to me, not because I don’t believe it, (and in fact have preached it to both students and patients), but because I still evidently haven’t learned it.
Being.
There is an old saying that we teach most what we need to learn, and I guess even the fact that I’m writing a blog called Rest Beside the Weary Road means I haven’t learned the art of “resting” too well.
But if the lyrics of that beautiful old song are to be believed, it is in resting that we are able to hear the angels sing, that we gain access to that beauty, that wisdom, that peace.
We aren’t called to those things at which we are already good, I’ve learned, but rather to those things that we have neglected, that have never had enough chance for life.
Maybe someday I will have done enough Being that I can go do some more Doing again, but that day is not today. Even as I sit in my darkenened living room looking out into the last vestiges of what was a brilliant sunset, I can imagine the faint sound of angel-song. And maybe if I sit quietly and wait, it will become louder. And clearer.