"No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it."

Quote by Harry Emerson Fosdick

I've been thinking for a while now that it's time to update this blog of mine. Several weeks ago, I tried to write a post about how we categorize people based on age, occupation, socioeconomic standing, etc, and how that categorization then develops our identity, whether we realize it or not. But the words just didn't come easily and I figured out that you can't rush inspiration. So that post is on the back burner, and I'm attempting to write something else.

Sunday is a day of rest. We Mennonites are supposed to go to church, sit for 3 or 4 hours listening to wise people expound on the Scriptures, then go home and eat a big dinner with our families. All this eating of big dinners makes us sleepy, and so we nap for several hours. Sunday evenings could potentially be a time of families bonding over board games and popcorn.

Did God mean for us to all conform to the same standard of rest? Does He expect us to literally not lift a finger in work? If we say that we cannot ride our bicycles on Sunday, because it is work, are we better than the Pharisees who made fastidious rules about how far a person could walk on the Sabbath? Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that we should do what we feel is restful to us (My, that sounds New Age-y...). We know ourselves. What relaxes us? What gets us in touch with God? I think I understand about God's day being holy, and I don't think we should abandon church services. Please don't hear me saying that. But maybe it's not all about the schedule. Maybe a bike ride is exactly what you need to forget the cares of the week, clear your mind, and focus on God. Or maybe it's a walk through the Meadville cemetery, like my good friend, Becca.

I just know that sometimes sitting in a warm church building, on hard benches, surrounded by people I only see once a week, is NOT my idea of restful, nor does it help me hear God (and other times it is and does). Maybe it's my fault. Perhaps I don't prepare my heart well enough, or I have deluded myself with imagined judgments from the people around me.

Let me present to you what I'm doing today, and I'll let you judge whether or not I "kept the Sabbath holy."

I slept in a little this morning. Not much, but a few hours more than I would have if I was heading off to school. I've been sitting in my room, praying and pondering life. Around 11, I'm going to pick up my darling nephew and bring him back here. We're going to clean up the house, then get out his construction zone rug and crash cement mixers with our dump trucks for a while. Then we're going to bake a chocolate cake with Auntie Hannah.

Before evening darkens the sky in preparation for the night, my family will sit down with our special meal of steak, corn-on-the-cob, and chocolate cake, in celebration of life in general, I guess. We will laugh and talk and enjoy the camaraderie that the name "Rolan" brings to our small group.

And tonight, I will fall into bed, happy with the day; happy with life. I will try not to remember that school begins tomorrow morning with a relentless and ferocious intensity that I hadn't expected. But I will be hopeful that the week will bring peace and wisdom in double measures. Because this is my life. And I'm happy with where it's taken me. And I know that God has promised to be with me, wherever He leads me.

I hope all of you had an extremely restful day of rest.