Take a break from action and start to love – Mk 6:30-34
You can do a lot in your life, do a lot for God, do a lot for people, but sometimes you have to leave this action in order to capture something more important than action: yourself, God and other human beings.
Something more than a vacation
The middle of July, the holiday season is in full swing. I just realized that I cannot live in "slow life" mode. Yes, I am having trouble entering Low Power Mode. My brain needs some kind of activity all the time. Meanwhile, in today's Gospel, Jesus says to his disciples: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while." I think there is more to it than just taking a few days off. Once I had the opportunity to be in the Judean Desert and sit there for several dozen minutes in solitude. Alone with the desert. It is really not easy to just be. Our brains are infected with activity. It even becomes, often unconscious, an addiction. You go out into a wilderness where there is literally nothing to do and your brain starts to go crazy, you feel lost, you do not know what to do with yourself. Meanwhile, it is just about letting yourself get out of this necessity to do something.
Alone with yourself
This inaction is not a goal in itself. It is supposed to create a space where I can be left alone with myself, which is really hard. How many things are there in us that we push into the unconscious somewhere. We live day after day, we chase ahead, but we lose touch with the depths of our hearts. We do not listen to ourselves. We have a problem being with ourselves. This problem also appears in the spiritual life. Some religious activities, maybe a whole set of prayers to be said, some evangelistic actions. It seems to me that the temptation to act in spiritual life is just as real as in the world around us.
There is a detox that can free us from it: adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. This is the space that invites us to come and be. Although there is the temptation to "pray" this time. It is seen in some of our parishes. It happens that during the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament there is not a moment of silence, because there is a rosary, and thereis a chaplet, and there is a litany, and there is a song. How is it just to be before the Lord?!
Just be with the Lord
But who told us that He needed all our activities? One of the Gospels of the vocation of disciples emphasizes that he called them to accompany him, that is, to be with him. They just were. To be with the Lord. As one of the songs says: "You only need to be, nothing more, just be, nothing more."
Being with ourselves, being with the Lord, is supposed to prepare us to be with other people. In today's Gospel, Jesus, seeing a crowd of people who need him, goes to them because he loves them. It is also a challenge to be with other people. In a world where it becomes increasingly difficult for us to be one with one another.
The mission "Houses of the Heart" in Honduras came to my mind. Volunteers from all over the world create a home in a district (usually a poor one) where everyone can come, drink tea, talk. They also go out to their neighbors' houses to spend some time with them, just to be together. This is their mission: to be with others. And you really do not have to do anything, because people expects the presence the most.
In fact, going out to the wilderness and resting from activity is about learning to love: yourself, God and other people. Love is not about doing. Love is about a person. It is an invitation to reevaluate my thinking, which redirects me from my activity to the one who is not the object of action, but the subject of my love. You can do a lot in your life, do a lot for God, do a lot for people, but sometimes you must leave this action in order to capture something more important than action: yourself, God and other human beings.
A white man traveled through the impenetrable forests of the Amazon in South America to discover new oil reserves. He was in a hurry. In the first two days, the natives hired by him as porters did everything to best fulfill their inhumanly heavy duties. On the third day, however, they stopped at dawn and stood silently in front of him. Their expressions showed that they were absent. The fact that they were no longer able to work was as clear as sunshine.
The impatient seeker, looking at his watch and waving his hands at the chief porter, made him understand that they were to move quickly, because time was running out. «It is impossible, the man replied calmly. “These people were running too fast, now they are waiting for their souls to return to them."
The people of our time are getting faster in everything. But they are also still more anxious, exhausted and unhappy. Because their souls have fallen behind and cannot keep up with them.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george