I don’t have any profound new wisdom that hasn’t already been in our culture. There is always ancient knowledge that we have forgotten. So much digital programming is being created right now. The crisis of this peculiar virus is sending us into a dizzying tailspin of grinding in the digital realm. It has been almost a full week that America has realized it is not immune to what happens globally. We are indeed interconnected and intertwined.
During this week, we have buckled in and created enough digital content to last us another decade. I have noticed this tendency in our culture to skip steps during trauma. We jump right to getting over it immediately, leaving no space for the precious ritual of grief, rest and lament. In our minds, there is no time for stopping to process, even in a global pandemic that has killed thousands. I have heard very little about the lives of the people who are now gone and instead been overwhelmed with 10,000 streaming videos to work out, sing, build a treehouse, bake bread, teach math to kids, play an instrument, go to church and everything else under the sun. We want to remain in the way it always was – super productive and focused on doing, even while the systems around us are failing and slowing down.
The truth is we will never go back to “normal” or “regular” after this crisis is contained, and for that, I am grateful and inspired. Our normal and regular pace was never meant for humans, but instead, a machine-level pace fueled by capitalism’s call to create wealth by any means necessary. I am curious now and always by what can be imagined during a true pause. Now that we are being forced to slow down, will we answer the call to collectively stop to dream, daydream, cultivate silence and rest? I believe we have a magical opportunity to stop. There is power in our rest and in our ability to slow down for the sake of collective healing and mourning. It’s time to rest.
In Rest and Power – Your Faithful Nap Bishop, Tricia Hersey
The Nap Ministry 