They looked up at me rather perplexed and then opened their mouth for another full throttle cry. I had kidnapped our neighbours 10 month old and was pushing them back and forward across the campsite field in the hope they would fall asleep… I realised I didn’t even know whether they were a boy or girl let alone their name. Mum had looked at the end of her tether and leapt at the offer of some respite. Your own child’s cry gets to you in a way that another’s simple doesn’t. Later that night I would be listening out in the wind for Tom shouting as he struggled to sleep, no one else would hear it but somehow you remain tuned in to your child’s cry even when they are an adult.
We are nearing the end of our time on St Agnes, only a few more days. Both boys are ready to be home, another year maybe they will just come for a week. Dave and I will be sorry to go but happy for the home comforts, particularly of our own bed. For me, this year, it is different. I come home to space and time and more adventures to come. In a sense the real beginning of my sabbatical.
The verses that resonate throughout “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” are from Matthew 11
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light”
To follow Jesus is to take up his yoke, and that yoke will be easy. Hang on, it doesn’t feel easy most of the time? How can this yoke be the way to rest? To a life without hurry when half the time I feel like I am running around chasing my tail?
The idea of yoke is an image from a particular time, an agricultural society, where two oxen would be ‘yoked’ together as they ploughed the fields. So to take up Jesus yoke is for us to walk with him, beside him, following his way and bearing the yoke, and the burden of life, together.
The key, John Comer suggests, is that we are called to follow the whole way of Jesus life, not just some doctrines or ethics but to embrace the way of life that Jesus lived:
“If you want to experience the life of Jesus, you have to adopt the lifestyle of Jesus”. (The R E of H)
In many ways what is being suggested chimes in with the ‘Holy Habits’ focus that has been around in the churches for a while, and within the United Reformed Church, the ‘Walking the Way’ theme that was key for a number of years. It is about saying that following Jesus is much more than a set of ideas and beliefs (our theology) or even the ethical choices we make, it is about a lifestyle and the whole way we live our lives.
“Your life is the by-product of your life-style. By life I mean your experience of the human condition, and by life-style I mean the rhythms and routines that make up your day-to-day existence.” (‘The R E of H’)
So following Jesus is about being given tools, a new yoke, with which to carry the burdens of life. It is not that those burdens will disappear, but that through taking the yoke, the way of life that Jesus offers, we are given the tools to bear those burdens in a fresh way and that Jesus will be bearing them with us. It is not an escape that Jesus offers us, but the equipment and the companionship to bear them:
“He offers a whole new way to bear the weight of our humanity: with ease. At his side. Like two oxen in a field, tied shoulder to shoulder. With Jesus doing all the heavy lifting. At his pace. Slow, unhurried, present to the moment, full of love and joy and peace.” (‘The R E of H’)
So what is this yoke? This way of life? John points to the idea of a ‘Rule of Life’ that unpins the way we are called to follow Jesus and is rooted in the life of Jesus (not his teachings but his life… the Gospels are more biography than teachings and we need to learn to listen to the stories of that life). Of course that is not so easy, Jesus was a single Palestinian man living over 2000 years ago, I am a middle aged woman with kids living in the 21st century!! Plus he was the son of God!!
And yet, if we claim to be followers of Jesus we must believe that the heart of that life speaks to the heart of our lives today. The ‘rule’ is like the trellis for a vine, it enables the vine to grow well and to bear good fruit, it is not an end in itself. And so it is critical that a rule of life does not become a legalistic end in itself but instead becomes the support that underpins us all living a healthy life and bearing good fruit.
Hopefully there will be time before we get home to finish writing and reflecting on this challenging book (although I know when I home I will have plenty of time for once!) Somehow it is a book that suits this place of slowing down, of strolling slowly from one place to another.
In the next section of the book there is an exploration of four core disciplines which can be the trellis upon which we grow – a lot to think on. These are:
Silence and solitude
Sabbath
Simplicity
Slowing
The sun has shone nearly all day and out of the wind it has been idyllic. I have swum and read and watched the sea and begun to feel the regret of leaving the wide expansive views.
Ruth's blog 