For Those Who Are Exhausted

This week we’ve reflected on some of the ‘woes’ of Jesus and how religion can try to keep us busy and how religious leaders can guilt us into ‘doing more for God’ when in reality God may just want us to slow down, pay attention to our bodies and our souls, and rest.

Sit with this poem for some time today. What lines speak to you and why? What might the Spirit be trying to open up in you?

For Those Who Are Exhausted
John O’Donohue

You have traveled too fast over false ground;

Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up

To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain

When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,

Taking time to open the well of color

That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone

Until its calmness can claim you.

Be excessively gentle with yourself.