We Need a Break

“To rest is to lose one’s way, to stray from the labour of being found out, to build wilder coalitions with the world around us, to make kin.”

In the beginning…

I often imagined him wearied from the act, beads of sweat embroidering his forehead, average-Joe sleeves rolled into blue collar folds just above his forearms, his knees weak and awkward, a gentle sigh filtering through his white flowing beard.

I cannot tell if my Christian pastors would have endorsed this private and teenage retelling of the first Sabbath, but the idea of a “God” who needed rest from his creative exertions – who needed to take a break from conducting red giants, brown dwarfs, quasars and a certain blue planet – appealed more to me than the more popular image of an all-powerful being who didn’t break a sweat, and was largely unbothered by the beauty of creation.