When my children were little they would wind up the more tired they were. It was as if they were afraid of falling asleep, afraid of stillness. More than once I would hold a crying child in my arms while they tried so hard to keep moving. I sat, gently rocking them and swaddling them in. And then it came… they stopped fighting for just a moment and like magic, the stillness settled in as they drifted off to peaceful sleep. They only needed to stop long enough to be still.

For as much as a pandemic curtailed our lives, in many ways, it became busier than ever. Meetings and events that were only in person were and still are now in our living room and even our bed via the phone and webcams. Phones ring and beep at all hours and the lanes of life and work seem to bleed into one another in all new ways. We carry our cell phones into all the spaces we walk so that even bathrooms are no longer sacred silent time.

It didnt end when the mandated shut downs did. We returned to our previous activities and kept all the lock down ones too. The moments of stillness are fewer and farther between than ever. Our ability to be still has nearly escaped us.

Thank goodness, God, like a loving mother, gathers us in struggling, weeping, and avoiding the rest we so desperately need. God is calling us to stillness so that we might be healed and nurtured.

When I knit, I am often surprised to find I tune into my body. I find myself aware of aches or tiredness, of worries that circle, and problems that need puzzling. As each stitch is crafted, falling gently off my needles for the next to be knit, I realize my mind, body, and heart are tended to in turn. Prayer in this time becomes a natural extension of the simple stillness my body experiences. My heart finds a steady rythym with my fingers and needles even as my spirit turns to conversation with God. In the knitting stillness, we sit, listening, chatting, puzzling, and healing; me and God.

More days than I like to admit, I look at my knitting and prayer life and respond like a toddler afraid to listen to their own need to be still. Yet God calls, and in the stillness, the power of restful healing is found. In the stillness, I hear the voice calling me back and reminding me, this is the pace we are meant to move at.