When taking piano lessons in elementary school, I was introduced to the concept of the rest note—an interval of silence within a piece of music. A rest note creates a deliberate pause, a temporary break in the action. Although they often pass by unnoticed, rest notes are a vital part of musical structure. They keep the other notes from stringing together in a breathless and chaotic way. Our written language includes these rest notes as well: We place periods at the ends of sentences, and we use breaks between paragraphs that convey different ideas. In life, too, we need these spaces for rest. Even our regular weekly rhythm includes a weekend. In addition, some faith traditions strongly endorse the practice of a day of rest. In the Bible, for example, the idea of resting after six days of work was modeled by God (Genesis 2: 2-3) and actually became a commandment for people to follow (Exodus 20:8). In psychological terms, taking some space to rest during the weekend is like placing a period at the end of one week before turning our attention to the next one. Without that space of rest, we can start to feel like our days and weeks are blurring together. Your life is moving pretty fast. Is it time to insert a rest note? ~Julie Exline, PhD
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 15:57:03 +0000
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