Last Saturday at our Nazareth Community meeting we read the Gospel passage, Matthew 26:36-45, where Jesus went to pray in the garden of Gethsemane with his disciples. Some he asked to sit on the edge of the garden, but Peter and the two sons of Zebedee he took further into the garden with him. Two of our ‘wonderings’ at the meeting were: “about a time when you stopped, and others carried on” and “about a time when others stopped, and you carried
on.”
At the beginning of the lockdown period, I was busier than ever. I had several essays to finish to be able to complete my degree and an important series of meetings to prepare for. While some of my friends stopped working and instead watched box sets on Netflix and created TikTok videos, I was typing away on my laptop; I was carrying on. Two weeks ago, I was at the stage that my essays had been submitted and the meetings had been sat. Shops and other
places were beginning to open up again and people around me were starting to ‘carry on’ with their lives but mine now appeared to have stopped, or paused, while I waited for the outcome of essay grades and of meetings.
In rugby union, the call from the referee before a scrum used to be “crouch, touch, pause, engage”. During this time of stopping, of pausing, before I ‘engage’ with what I do next, I’ve learnt that resting in this moment is OK.
Jen Adam
