The Power of Relaxing

So I was driving home this evening from taking my 3 sick kiddos & under-the-weather self to see my dad off to his flight back to Hungary, and I heard an interview with DJ Dan Deacon. In honor of the end of this week of rest in Milkweed, read this excerpt & prepare to have your brain shifted a bit!

"I was doing what I thought was relaxing, but was actually just killing time: I was on Facebook. And a friend of mine posted a video from the Toronto Film Festival of Bill Murray talking about his approach to acting — or his philosophy about life, I guess. And it just completely blew me away, because he said, 'Whatever your job is, the more relaxed you are, the better you are.'

And to me this was just like, 'What are you talking about? I forgot that word even existed!' Because I very much was a person who was motivated by stress; I would use a deadline as a motivator. I think a lot of people do that, where they're like, 'I'll just wait until the last minute, and that'll light a fire underneath me and I'll get it done.' And I just kept thinking, 'Well, that's a terrible way to live. Why am I building a house and lighting a fire in the basement just to see if I can finish the roof before it burns down my whole house?'

I started realizing how important it is to truly relax, and in relaxing, to be bored. You have to be bored. If you're not bored, your mind is never gonna wander, and if your mind never wanders, you're never gonna get lost in thought, and you're never gonna find yourself thinking things you wouldn't have otherwise thought."
-Dan Deacon

The Consequences of Cleansing

God loves object lessons. Just look at the Old Testament prophets & how He had them deliver important messages to kings! So here's what He taught me last night. Does this make me royalty?

Bob & I had a much-needed date night last night (with the boys), so we went to an inexpensive family restaurant with his birthday money & pigged out. I ate portions & food I haven't had in years. And last night, when I attempted to digest it all, my body told me that was a bad idea. I had so well cleansed myself & re-sensitized myself with a recent fast, healthy eating, etc., that this old way of doing things was clogging me up & making me sick. It's going to take a while to get back to stasis!

And as I pondered this, gripping my tummy in bed and wincing, I thought of a movie that is being released this weekend that is jamming up my news feed with controversy. And I thought of how, as we draw closer to our loving Daddy & perfect Master during this time, indulging in entertainment, habits, & activities that once brought us delight could now clog us up because of our increased sensitivity to junk. Granted, Christian movie critics will see this film, and sociologists who love Jesus will buy tickets to evaluate it as a trend in our culture. But this is not Schindler's List - the violence & distastefulness in it doesn't serve a noble purpose, and I have yet to see a compelling reason for many of us to show up to the theaters.

Ultimately, your choice of what to select off the menu is yours. The New Testament tells us the good news about liberty instead of legalism, thanks to Jesus setting us free from the law! But I encourage you, if you don't want to be sick after a time of cleansing, be careful, little eyes, what you see - it will affect you more in your new season than it would at another time. And that is God's gift to you!