In the deep jungles of Africa a traveler was making a long trek. He had hired some local people to help carry some of his camp gear. The first day they made good time and they went very far, much farther than he anticipated. This traveler had high hopes that the journey could be completed quicker than he thought.
But the next morning these jungle tribesmen refused to move. Although they were not particularly tired they just sat and ate and drank and rested. When he asked the leader why they would not march, he said, “Because we went too fast yesterday, and we are now waiting for our souls to catch up with our bodies.”
Letting Your Soul Catch Up.
We hear something similar in our Gospel today in Mark 6:31, to “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” Or, the older translation, “Come apart” with Jesus and rest a while. It’s been said, “If you don’t come apart (for a while) and rest, you will come apart.” (Vince Havner)
The philosopher Pascal once quipped, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”….a restlessness which recalls Augustine, who found that the restlessness of the human heart can be rested only in God. 1
When the Master invited the Governor to practice meditation and the Governor said he was too busy, this is the reply he got:
“You put me in mind of a man walking blind-folded into the jungle—and too busy to take the blindfold off.”
When the Governor pleaded lack of time, the Master said, “It is a mistake to think that meditation cannot be practiced for lack of time. The real cause is agitation of the mind.”2
Jesus enjoyed popularity with the character of his person and message of eternal salvation. The disciples find Jesus and say, “Everyone is looking for you,” but Jesus says “rest” because Mark 6:30 says that the apostles had been busy and “gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught.” To spend silent moments savoring the working of God in our life, which includes discovering all the emotions we have buried in the rush of activity and work, and discern the movement of the Lord. You don’t hear silence, per se, but it is that by which you hear.
We can also see from the example of Jesus not to be codependent with compliance patterns during prayer time like by worrying about others rejection or anger, or that others are incapable of talking care of themselves, or even a sense of false loyalty of remaining in a harmful situation like too much time at the office.
The ethics of doing nothing for a time is about how “all labor must eventually come to an end,” which has effects and purposes outside of itself.” For instance, prayer or appreciating artworks are seemingly non-productive yet they are truly subversive [to the dominate culture] and transformative.3
It’s also protective. The passion and calling to serve others may even blind one to the detrimental effects resulting from a lack of attention to physiological, social, emotional, and spiritual limitations, [and] the specific negative personal and professional implications of neglecting oneself can include burnout, compassion fatigue, and even vicarious traumatization.4
The challenge is that the human mind tends to be always active with thoughts, but “it is of little use to say to ourselves “stop thinking;” we might as well say “stop breathing.”5
Yet we have a natural hunger for silence whose recognition requires only a disciplined taste for it.
The remedy of the ancient Christian monks also happens to be the same insight as “the Chinese Buddhist saying which forms the basic rule on one-pointedness, so necessary for any kind of sitting meditation: to `replace the ten-thousand thoughts with one single thought.’ In our case, this one single thought, or “the thought of One only,’ is the holy name of Jesus.” Repeating the name of Jesus is distinct from Zen meditation as it should be seen “not so much as prayer emptied of thoughts, but as prayer filled with the Beloved.”6
Or consider that the Jesus Prayer is not mindfulness. The problem with mindfulness is that is can weaken judgment because it filters likes and dislikes that biases our experience. Plus, the Biblical witness is that of love, hate, to emphasize priorities in life. The Christian version of mindfulness is contemplative prayer. E.g. “If you really wish to cover over your evil thoughts…to be still and calm, and to watch over your heart without hindrance, let the Jesus Prayer cleave to your breath.”7
Regarding distractions in prayer, “Oh, there’s someone I need to remember to email tomorrow;” “I remember when he or she said this or that to me!” And if the memory of your past sins or the temptation to new ones should plague your mind,…bury the thought of these deeds beneath the thick cloud of forgetting just as if neither you nor anyone else ever done them.” The Cloud of Unknowing, 14 Century.
The experience of this priest offers a good example:
During one retreat I delivered, I overheard one individual’s diatribe against a certain politician. She could not give it a rest and returned to the topic during the breaks. The retreat director said, “That’s when a thought materialized on my lips, and if it didn’t change that poor woman, at least it changed me. “Would the person who brought Senator X into this room as their personal guest please take him out?” She had allowed Senator X into her mental living room and make him a central figure in her life. She was aghast at the thought of it.” After that, the director began that same distraction limitation exercises on himself when disagreeable people threaten to upend his concentration. He says, “I greet them, ask myself why I have allowed them into my mental living room, and politely escort them to the door.”8
Jesus is the place of rest. But consider the Israelites’ repeated instances of disobedience, and Psalm 95:11: “Therefore, I swore in my anger, truly they shall not enter into my rest.” Instead they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years until their entire generation died.
I will conclude with an illustration:
"What is the highest act a person can perform?"
"Sitting in meditation."
“Wouldn’t that lead to inaction?”
“It IS inaction”
“Is action, then, inferior?”
“Inaction gives life to actions. Without it, they are dead.”
But the Master himself was rarely seen to sit in meditation. He was ceaselessly engaged in housework and fieldwork, in meeting people and writing books. He even took up the bookkeeping chores of the monastery.
"Why, then, do you spend all your time in work?"
"When one works, one need not cease to sit in meditation."9
1. Thomas Hobbs and Mollie Moore, Encounters with the Counter-Cultural Power of Silence, Church Life Journal, University of Notre Dame, pg. 1,8
2. Anthony deMello. The Prayer of the Frog, 1
3. Andrew Blosser, The Ethics of Doing Nothing: Rest, Rituals, and the Modern World; Orbis Books, 2023, pg. 104
4. Lawson, 2007; Newell & MacNeil, 2010; Saakvitne; Pearlman, 1996. Cited by Jama L. White, Amanda M. Blackburn and Mary K. Plisco, Rest as a virtue: theological foundations and application to personal and professional life, Journal of Psychology and Theology (Vol. 43, Issue 2) .
5. Joseph Wong, O.S.B. Cam., The Jesus Prayer and Inner Stillness; Religion East & West, Issue 10, Oct. 2010, pg. 41
6. Wong, pg. 42
7. Sofia Carozza, Catholic Schools and the Values of Mindfulness Life Journal, University of Notre Dame, article.
8. Father Eric Hollis, OSB, The Priest Magazine, Feb. 2020, pg. 44
9. Anthony deMello
