And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and God rested on the seventh day. ~ Genesis 2:2
Wang and I got up early to walk the Box Canyon Loop. He was chipper like a little bird, and I was not. I wanted to sleep in, and he wanted to walk early and avoid the heat of midday. We drove to the empty trailhead parking lot above the canyon and started walking on the Rim Trail.
The early morning sun crept up like an old spider above Sharkstooth Pass. “Very Good. Very Good,” Wang said. “Yep,” I said as I plodded ahead on the trail. We walked in silence. The crisp, fresh morning air felt clean on the skin. We could not see the river flowing below us, but we could hear it moving like the wind, cascading down the canyon, following the path of least resistance.
The trail turned and plunged downhill towards the West Mancos River. The morning light grew as the shadows of night disappeared. Clusters of yellow daises, splashes of purple aster, and the occasional red paintbrush stretched their petals out and up in salutation to the sun. I could not count all the shades of green of the plants and shrubs, a painter’s delight.
Two giant yellow swallowtails danced up an aspen tree and tumbled down in an ancient ritual performed since the beginning of time. The sun continued to rise as birds darted from tree to tree. Mother Earth was coming alive in all her glory.
We stopped walking, breathed deeply, and looked again. “The second gaze sees fully and truthfully,” writes Richard Rohr. We notice divine beauty around us and even within us. “Maybe this is like the Garden of Eden,” Wang said. We breathed again.
Where is the Garden of Eden in our lives? A hilltop? A bend in a river? A glorious tree? The stars at night? “Give us a quiet place God where we can rest in you.”
Wayne Muller writes, “In the Genesis story, the Creator works for six days, shaping the green, fluid beauty of the earth with life everywhere: birds and fish and beasts of the fields, verdant trees, flowers, fragrances wafting gently on breezes that circle this fresh, fertile orb of life.”
Wang and I drew closer to the river. White and black butterflies appeared and lighted on flowers. They did not seem to mind our presence in their home even though I did not know their names. “This is good,” Wang said. “Yes, it is.”
We stopped at the river, dipped our hands in the cold water, and washed it over our dry skin. The water tumbled freely down its path. “Don’t push the river,” I said to myself. “Faith might be precisely that ability to trust the river, to trust the flow and the lover,” writes Rohr.
I wonder if we could place all our worries and fears into the river of life and let them go and trust the rivers of living water flowing from our hearts (John 7:38). “Without this awareness of the river, without a sense that we are supported (loved), we succumb to fear,” says Rohr.
Do we trust the divine flow of life? Do we need to know what is around the bend?
Our Divine Creator worked for six days, and it was good, and on the seventh day God rested. “For now, this is enough. In the Hebrew Bible, the word for rest can literally be read, ‘And God exhaled,’” says Muller.
God exhaled. When do we exhale?
When do we stop and say, “This is enough.” Muller asks, “Have we forgotten what enough of anything feels like—enough work, enough success, enough love, enough security, enough wealth, enough care for our children, enough generosity, enough daily bread?”
On the seventh day, God stopped, rested, and exhaled. The Sabbath commands us to rest, to pray, to exhale, and to renew our lives. “Why then are we so reluctant to ever stop, be still, or allow our work to feel sufficient for this day?” asks Muller.
Wang and I continued to follow the trail alongside the West Mancos River. The path veered up the canyon slope and we slowed down to catch our breath. The trail dropped down and followed the gentle contours of the river.
I always admire the tremendous fir and spruce trees that grow alongside the river. They reach to the sky and stand together in quiet solidarity, at peace with the world and one another. They bend with the wind and weather the winter storms year after year. I value their still, quiet strength.
In a recent poem, Wendell Berry writes about the “notion of the sabbath as a day of rest.” A day “when people might understand that the providence or the productivity of the living world, the most essential work, continues while we rest.” The trees alongside the river know this.
Do we take time to rest? To exhale? Do we grow wiser and more mature in the soil of time as the trees do?
Wang and I walked for a little over two hours and it was enough to restore our souls.
May we intentionally stop, rest, and exhale as God did. May we trust the flow of the river and live a life of abundance.
Blessings and peace,
Craig