Summer languishing and the unforced rhythms of grace
Summer is here and I’ve hardly registered it now that I’m no longer teaching full-time. Summer is an interesting season for teachers. I think people often consider jobs to be either physically draining or mentally draining. But teaching is both. I was on my feet all day, up and down multiple flights of steps, across two buildings, back and forth. I barely had time to pee or eat or refill my water bottle because students always needed something. I’d talk loudly all day, keeping the energy up in the room by exaggerating stories and quite literally throwing my whole body into my lessons. By the time I got home each afternoon, I’d collapse on the couch out of physical exhaustion. But I’d also then be grading hundreds of pages of student writing a week, attending to the mental health needs of over 100 students, going to meetings, coming up with creative lesson plans, participating in committee work, all the while remaining 100% mentally “on” all the time. September to May is an unspeakably draining nine months.
By January, I would either be incessantly checking the weather in hopes of a snow day or dreaming of summer, planning my escape. But then summer would arrive. At first, there was the inevitable crash, an epic let down. I think every teacher needs at least two weeks recovery time to detox from the school year. Then, there was the vacation to restore energy and enjoy a refreshing change of scenery. But then… there was languishing.
The American Psychological Association’s Dictionary of Psychology defines languishing as “the condition of absence of mental health, characterized by ennui, apathy, listlessness, and loss of interest in life.” It’s the middle ground between depression and flourishing, that doggie paddling purgatory where you’re not really resting, but also not getting anything done. It’s the feeling of an unmoored summer, of being exhausted and stuck.
I really struggled with this the last few summers. I suspect teachers during summer months are especially prone, or anyone who experiences a sudden shift in routine. So when I decided to take a full year off, I knew something needed to shift.
I’m not a routine person. Routines, calendars, rigid structures feel oppressive and seem to stifle creativity, in my mind. Google calendar invites in my inbox stress me out. And yet, in my time off and in these summer months where life follows a different flow, I find myself craving an anchor. I don’t want a routine, and I certainly don’t want a rigid, externally-imposed structure. But an anchor in my week, a rhythm to my days, a natural emphasis on seasonality-- this all sounds like a restorative and freeing change of pace. So when I re-read the Message translation of Matthew 11:28-30 at the very beginning of my year off, something in me perked up. It seemed to me that this type of grounding might offer an antidote to my languishing:
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
I didn’t really believe this promise of Jesus then, and honestly, I still struggle with it. Recover my life? I mean, wow. To live freely and lightly, find real rest? This certainly does not feel possible, especially with the heaviness of current events and global suffering. It’s laughable, even.
But the phrase “unforced rhythms of grace” especially drew me in. I imagined Jesus with his hand outstretched to me, perhaps a slight smile on his face, telling me to get up and try life out his way, no big deal. Just trust and relax because what is there to lose?
Don’t we all want to be taken at our word? Apparently even Jesus.
So I decided I was going to try. I decided to enter my year off with as open a heart as I possibly could, despite the fears and anxieties, heaviness and pain. I decided to try to take Jesus at his word, in each gospel passage, to give him the benefit of the doubt. I decided to try to walk with him and work with him, watch how he does this thing called life. I decided to try believe him when he says he won’t lay anything heavy on me, that I’ll live freely and lightly with his company. I decided to set aside the skepticism and bristling and instead, accompany him. And see what might happen.
And a lot has happened, both in terms of the circumstances of my life and in terms of the posture of my heart. I mean, a LOT. That’s really what this whole Substack project is all about— letting you all as readers in on the inner shifts and consoling gifts I’ve both resisted and enjoyed along the way.
This heart level choosing to take Jesus at his word has been the animating force behind my time off and also what ultimately led me to the decision to walk a portion of the Camino to conclude my year. What better way to take Jesus at his word when he says “walk with me and work with me!”
This emphasis on walking, on the journey, makes me think of a chapter from an excellent book I recently read called The Spirituality of Imperfection by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham. The authors make the point that, in their words, “spirituality is one of those realities that you have only so long as you seek it; as soon as you think you have it, you’ve lost it” (131). They continue to describe this seeking as a pilgrimage. The following excerpt is long, but stick with it:
The pilgrimage metaphor conveys spirituality’s open-endedness by reinforcing the essential distinction between confident certainty and the mysteries of uncertainty. A pilgrimage involves not a settled and determined lockstep march to a fixed point, but a winding, turning, looping, crisscrossing, occasionally backtracking peregrination – the ancient name for “pilgrimage” that conveys its wandering essence. It is no accident that Bill Wilson’s favorite image, repeated literally thousands of times in letters to people who sought his advice, depicted sobriety as “a kind of Pilgrim’s Progress.” “We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection,” reminds the A.A. Big Book.
An unlikely modern source provides a helpful picture of the open-ended journey that is traditional spirituality.
Several years ago, the cartoon strip Family Circus showed little Billy, in all his open-faced innocence, arriving at his front door, schoolbooks in hand. His mother gazed down on him with a relieved but sternly questioning look on her face.
“Honest, Mom,” he was saying, his round face gleaming with puzzled truthfulness, “I came straight home from school!”
Sketched out in a dotted line behind Billy, cartoonist Bil Keane indicated the “straight” route he had taken-- a rambling circuit of loops and twists, zigzags and meanderings, as he tested every swing, picked up every errant ball, petted every dog, waded through every mud puddle (132-133).
So tomorrow, that’s what I’ll be doing. I’ll be starting my “straight” walk to Santiago de Compostela in Spain— a physical manifestation of the rambling circuit of loops and twists, zigzags and meanderings that have characterized the inner movements of my heart this past year. It’s my hope that as I walk, as I pilgrim, I’ll continue learning to take Jesus at his word, walking alongside him and learning from him, moving away from languishing and into the unforced rhythms of grace.
I’m excited to see what might happen.
A Spiritual Practice:
I actually don’t have one this time. In fact, if I’m honest, I’m not sure how I feel about offering one with each piece of writing that I post. I’m still trying things out here in this Substack space, still zigzagging! I feel like even this piece meanders.
So I think what feels most truthful right now is simply to say:
Let’s keep meandering as we make our way straight home. Buen Camino!
Kurtz, Ernest, and Katherine Ketcham. The Spirituality of Imperfection : Storytelling and the Search for Meaning. New York, N.Y., Bantam Books, 2002.