Time to rest?

I am not good at learning the lesson of life, that we need to take time to rest.

I listen to enough music that this is a lesson that I should be well aware of. I learned to read music while learning to play the clarinet. it is a simple fact of music that it the times when the instruments are not playing that add to the intensity of the other ones that are.

I read a lovely tale not long ago about the famous fable teller, Aesop.

According to the teller of the tale,  a man noticed the great storyteller Aesop playing childish games with some little boys. 

He laughed and jeered at Aesop, asking him why he wasted his time in such frivolous activity.

Aesop responded by picking up a bow, loosening its string, and placing it on the ground. Then he said to the critical Athenian, "Now, answer the riddle if you can. Tell us what the unstrung bows imply."

The man looked at it for several moments but had no idea what point Aesop was trying to make.

Aesop explained, "If you keep a bow always bent, it will break eventually; but if you let it go slack, it will be more fit for use when you want it."

People are also like that. That's why we all need to take time to rest. 

I was brought up to see the importance of having a day of rest. This had nothing to do with religion or that the Sabbath had been set aside by Jews and Christians as a day of rest, even though they both had different days they called the Sabbath. My father was neither yet he considered it worthy that one day a week we ate less, often nothing more than liquid, and that we took time to relax and just walk together. 

Sadly I did not learn the full value of that and have turned walking into an almost daily task. I rejoice in the fact that I can still enjoy the many things my father taught me to take in.

The question I ask this day, shouldn't we take the example of Aesop seriously? 

Start by setting aside a special time to relax physically and renew yourself emotionally and spiritually. You will be at your best if you have taken time to loosen the bowstring of life.

Forgive my thoughts if they sound a bit like the preacher coming out, but it struck me yesterday as I walked. That we should.

"Carry some quiet around inside us.  "Be still and cool in your own mind and spirit, from your own thoughts, and then you will feel the principle of life to turn your mind to the beauty of nature from where comes life.  Then  you may receive the strength and power to allay all storms and tempests that come your way." 

I offer it as something I wrote down while walking and will give it further thought today. have a marvellous day.