August 2025

A month of summer remains. Have we rested? Or are we still rushing about and choosing distractions? We are a rather distractable people aren’t we? It’s not just that we submit to distraction, but we throw ourselves at it so readily.

Mary Oliver uses the phrase, “the intimate interrupter,” to refer to this trait inside us that wants us to do anything apart from the thing that five minutes ago, we knew was the thing that needed our attention and our care. It is mysterious. We can be hounded by a belief that we’re “morally obliged” to stay plugged in. And it seems to push the things that matter the most, further and further over the horizon. We are often stretched and stressed to the breaking point. 

Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote, “We need to fight for inner liberty. Inner liberty depends upon being exempt from domination of things as well as from domination of people… This is our constant problem – how to live with people and remain free, how to live with things and remain independent… There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.” 

So we challenge the urge to escape, numb, avoid, possess. And when we do, we find ourselves available for God and present with one another. We start returning and not fleeing, we get quiet and trust, we find strength renewed, delight returning and rest provided. Let’s claim space and time for God to replenish and renew us.

Tom

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:
In returning and rest you shall be saved;
    in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.
But you refused and said,
‘No! We will flee upon horses’—
    therefore you shall flee!
and, ‘We will ride upon swift steeds’—
    therefore your pursuers shall be swift!
A thousand shall flee at the threat of one;
    at the threat of five you shall flee
until you are left
    like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
    like a signal on a hill.

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you;
    therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
    blessed are all those who wait for him.

Isaiah 30:15-18