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A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Canon Angela Tilby

Good morning.

I suppose the most important aspect of the summer for most of us is the promise of a break from our routines. A chance to rest from work, from the tyranny of the alarm clock, and the struggle to keep up with ourselves. We know in some part of our minds that the life we live is profoundly unnatural. Too much time keeping, too much pressure, too much artificial light.

We have lost the rhythms that our forebears knew of rising at dawn and going to bed at dusk, of adjusting our body clocks to the time of year. Many of us find we sleep less in the summer and seem to need it less, while in winter I feel quite attracted to hibernation! There's a hymn sung by the nuns of Stanbrook Abbey which speaks of seeking God’s glory ‘in rest, as in activity’. That appeals to me, because it contradicts the commonly held view that we should be filling every moment by doing things and being useful. Time then becomes a tyrant, extracting our last drop of energy, insisting that we work harder and longer.

It is easy to get into this thought trap and then find that rest and relaxation become a real problem. We begin to fear that we won’t get enough sleep and the fear itself keeps us awake. It’s like the phone apps which are designed to measure sleep which apparently cause some to get insomnia. So today I want to go to my work in a measured way, and to take my rest seriously. And also to look forward without guilt, for a real break.

Thy glory may we ever seek in rest as in activity, until its fullness is revealed, O source of life, O Trinity.