I woke up tired this morning.
On Friday, I went to see my Dad in hospital, where he’s stuck with a bout of pneumonia, and then had supper with my Mum. On Saturday I saw some very old friends, sat around, sang, laughed a lot and went busking. My children showed up as if by magic (because they are the best) and then we had tea with some other, even older friends. Yesterday I led the morning service at Church and preached, then in the afternoon I changed some kitchen cupboard doors.
It was a lovely, busy, slightly frantic weekend. I was happy and sad, tired, thoughtful, joyful, exhilarated and slightly worried, mostly content but also a touch anxious.
And at the end of all the busy-ness I was a) knackered and b) fretting about all the things I hadn’t done: the laundry, for example and the work I’d brought home. I cooked nothing and I didn’t sweep the yard. My Susie has gotten barely half a dozen words out of me and I missed Dulwich Hamlet away at Dorking.
I reckon that the sense that somehow there is always more to do is one of our commonest shared afflictions.
But, weirdly, the bible has pretty stern words for people who don’t keep themselves productively busy. The writer of Proverbs warns that ‘a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber.’
Now it’s not really my job to come on here and contradict the Bible; but seriously? Sleep, rest, folding of the hands: these are vital to health and happiness. No one ever fell into want from curling up in a chair for a little while.
It’s a relief then to remember that Jesus’ rather more chilled advice was essentially to love each other and not worry. After all, as he put it, ‘Who, by worrying, can add a single hour to his life’.
So this week, this term, this autumn as we all say goodbye to a thoroughly not-idle summer, I plan occasionally to be idle; not just to sweep the yard but to sit in the yard, not just to strive after contentment but to be content. And I hope that some Mondays I’ll wake up raring to go, and not just raring to go back to sleep.
The image is a detail from The Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Orazio Gentileschi, c.1626-8; now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.