BROOKFIELD UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH
Sermon: "Gimme a break"
by Alyssa Lee
November 5, 2023
People have been throwing around the phrase “self-care” a lot in the last few years, and unfortunately it has often meant buying one’s self something rather than other forms of care. If I buy this serum for the skin on my face, or spend untold amounts to get a massage, or if I could just find that perfect super soft sweatshirt (that likely costs $200), then I will feel cared for and happy.
But, what does actual generosity toward ourselves mean? How can we care for ourselves in a way that honors our true needs and wants? Especially right now when we are still half-way in a pandemic, dealing with incredibly scary and complex wars across the world, gun violence near and far, and a fractured electorate? How do we truly care for ourselves and those around us when, for many of us we are barely keeping our head above water or feeling so dispirited by the news everyday that it might just be easier to ignore it and hope it goes away. And yet we know it won’t.
Have any of you heard of the Nap Ministry? It is a movement created by Tricia Hershey, a.k.a. the Nap Bishop, who between seminary, work, an internship, and raising her son, realized something had to give. When she was reading for school Hershey kept falling asleep and realized that she felt renewed every time she awoke. (imagine that) She then began building in moments of respite into her day, no matter where she was. She slept, she took long baths, meditated, or just simply allowed herself to daydream. She said, “I was exhausted physically, mentally, spiritually, and I just didn’t see any other way except to take a radical leap and say:
‘I don’t care, let the chips fall where they may,’” she said, “If I fail out of school,
that’s fine if I don’t finish that grade — because I’m going to bed.” She turned this personal revelation into a movement and began inviting other people to nap with her and she offered sermons about the power of sleep. She coined the phrase, “Rest is resistance.” People began taking her advice, they quit jobs, took sabbaticals, or slowed down business ventures, because they realized they too needed a break. They needed to rest.
For so many of us, we have been taught the true measure of success is being busy. I don’t know about you, but I often feel like conversations with my friends can sound like the “Busy Olympics” where everyone is trying to prove how important they and their jobs are by demonstrating how stressed out and busy they are. I heard a conversation several months ago between On Being’s Krista Tippett and U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon in which Limon was describing a poem she’d written and she said:
“This poem is very much about learning to find a home and a sense of belonging in a world where being at peace is actually frowned upon. Where being at ease is not okay. We prioritize busyness.
“Oh, I’m stressed.” [Or] “Oh, if you want to know about stress, let me tell you, I’m stressed.” She then says, “I like to tell my friends when they say they’re really stressed, I’ll be like, “Oh, I took the most wonderful nap. You should take a nap.” She laughed in the interview and said, “I know it’s cruel."
This part of their conversation stayed with me because it felt like one of the few times I have heard people have a conversation about how great a lack of busyness can be.
There was definitely a time in my life in which I would never have dared to claim I was anything other than busy, lest someone think I was not successful or heaven forbid, not productive enough. I often wonder what if we stopped thinking that way? What if we stopped measuring our success and that of others based on how busy we all are? What if your own measure of success was actually measured by our ability to live the life we want on your own terms? What if it were about, not the absence of time during the day, but the existence of time to do with your life as you wish? Or, even more radical, what if we stopped caring about success at all? But that, perhaps, is a sermon for another day.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about how one of the only good things to come from the COVID pandemic is that, for the first time in my working life, many of us can call in sick. I’m sure many of you have been a part of a workplace culture that offers so few sick days (if at all) that you reserve them for medical appointments or caregiving so that you feel you are unable to take them for actually being ill. Or possibly, you have an employer that offers sick days but guilts you or makes you feel like your job may be threatened if you take them? So, you and your co-workers have gone into work sick anyway, even if you know you could get everyone else sick or prolong your own illness.
I remember once pre-COVID, when I was working as the Director of an Alternative Dispute Resolution Program, going to work and facilitating an all-day negotiation conference between two parties with probably five plus people on each side. I didn’t feel like I could miss it, but it was probably one of the times I’ve been the most sick in my life and it was obvious to everyone there. I remember one of the attorneys shaking my hand after the conference and then immediately grabbing some hand sanitizer and apologizing for it, lest I be offended by this gesture. Can you imagine? He was apologizing to me for trying to sanitize away the sizeable germs I likely just transmitted to him. So, it is remarkable that now, many of us, can actually stay home rather than put our co-workers at risk.
Although, I think with the popularity of working from home, many of us still can’t rest. I have watched countless friends with COVID or some other type of illness, feeling absolutely terrible, but also feeling like they still need to be productive. Or, their kids may be sick or they need to provide care for another adult in their lives but yet they must still muddle through and get work done.
And this isn’t just the case for illness either. Many of us don’t know when to stop or have been trained that we cannot stop – that to be rested or take a step back somehow indicates we are less passionate about our jobs or other requirements on our time. Further still, many of us have been taught that to love someone we must sacrifice some part of ourselves. We have to give until it hurts, right? Our children or significant others or other family members won’t truly know we care for them and love them unless we run ourselves ragged in service of them. Unless we prioritize their plans over ours, their comfort and rest over ours.
Have you heard this theory of 10,000 hours? The theory is that to truly be good at something, you must devote 10,000 hours to it. I was recently thinking about this with respect to writing sermons. Say, if I spent two hours every day writing, how long would it take me to get 10,000 hours. It would me over 27 years. So, look for me in the year 2050 and I will be knocking those sermons out of the park.
But what if we let ourselves off the hook for all of that? What if we, like the Nap Bishop, Ms. Hershey, decided to let ourselves rest instead? If we dared to fail or simply leave things unfinished or imperfect? What would that look like?
Today is the end of Daylight Savings Time and this, with the onset of winter, means the days will be getting shorter and colder and the darkness will be sinking in much earlier. During this time of year, I often start thinking about this concept of hygge; which is a Danish somewhat undefinable concept which can somewhat be described as “taking time from the daily rush to be with people you care about – or even yourself – to relax and enjoy life’s quieter pleasures.” Helen Russell, a British journalist who wrote “The Year of Living Danishly,” defines the term as “taking pleasure in the presence of gentle, soothing things,” like a freshly brewed cup of coffee and cashmere socks. Of course, the influx of books and articles in the United States on hygge tend to focus on the consumerism of this concept. What products can you buy to make your life more comfortable, make the winter more bearable and cozy? And, even some of the Danish underpinnings can seem steeped in luxury and privilege, yet, I think there is something we can learn from this concept.
Louisa Thomsen Brits, a British-Danish writer, “speaks of hygge as a state of mindfulness: how to make essential and mundane tasks dignified, joyful, and beautiful, how to live a life connected with loved ones.
Perhaps we can find from this concept inspiration to focus on the joy of this season and slowing down and spending time with yourself or others you care about and how this can be a spiritual act. Finding joy in the mundane task of everyday life and the beauty in our care for ourselves and others can be deeply rewarding, and maybe in the slowing down and going about our lives with more deliberation we can find that sense of relaxation and respite.
People often give the metaphorical advice to put on your own mask first as in an airplane, as a way to indicate that you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. And I do think that is important advice, but I also think it’s okay to take care of yourself first just to take care of yourself. Full stop. The care for yourself does not have to be in service of anyone or anything else. You can simply love and value yourself enough to know in your bones you deserve to be cared for.
Those who have had difficult childhoods or other periods of their lives sometimes wonder what would they be like if someone had cared for them the way they now care for their own children or loved ones in their lives? How would things be different? Well, why not find out? Why not care for yourself the way you wish someone had cared for you? Not because it will make you a better parent, partner, friend, or colleague, but because you deserve it. Because you have worth outside of an of the roles you play, just because you are you.
And you and only you get to decide what gives your life meaning.
Blessed be and may it be so.
But, what does actual generosity toward ourselves mean? How can we care for ourselves in a way that honors our true needs and wants? Especially right now when we are still half-way in a pandemic, dealing with incredibly scary and complex wars across the world, gun violence near and far, and a fractured electorate? How do we truly care for ourselves and those around us when, for many of us we are barely keeping our head above water or feeling so dispirited by the news everyday that it might just be easier to ignore it and hope it goes away. And yet we know it won’t.
Have any of you heard of the Nap Ministry? It is a movement created by Tricia Hershey, a.k.a. the Nap Bishop, who between seminary, work, an internship, and raising her son, realized something had to give. When she was reading for school Hershey kept falling asleep and realized that she felt renewed every time she awoke. (imagine that) She then began building in moments of respite into her day, no matter where she was. She slept, she took long baths, meditated, or just simply allowed herself to daydream. She said, “I was exhausted physically, mentally, spiritually, and I just didn’t see any other way except to take a radical leap and say:
‘I don’t care, let the chips fall where they may,’” she said, “If I fail out of school,
that’s fine if I don’t finish that grade — because I’m going to bed.” She turned this personal revelation into a movement and began inviting other people to nap with her and she offered sermons about the power of sleep. She coined the phrase, “Rest is resistance.” People began taking her advice, they quit jobs, took sabbaticals, or slowed down business ventures, because they realized they too needed a break. They needed to rest.
For so many of us, we have been taught the true measure of success is being busy. I don’t know about you, but I often feel like conversations with my friends can sound like the “Busy Olympics” where everyone is trying to prove how important they and their jobs are by demonstrating how stressed out and busy they are. I heard a conversation several months ago between On Being’s Krista Tippett and U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon in which Limon was describing a poem she’d written and she said:
“This poem is very much about learning to find a home and a sense of belonging in a world where being at peace is actually frowned upon. Where being at ease is not okay. We prioritize busyness.
“Oh, I’m stressed.” [Or] “Oh, if you want to know about stress, let me tell you, I’m stressed.” She then says, “I like to tell my friends when they say they’re really stressed, I’ll be like, “Oh, I took the most wonderful nap. You should take a nap.” She laughed in the interview and said, “I know it’s cruel."
This part of their conversation stayed with me because it felt like one of the few times I have heard people have a conversation about how great a lack of busyness can be.
There was definitely a time in my life in which I would never have dared to claim I was anything other than busy, lest someone think I was not successful or heaven forbid, not productive enough. I often wonder what if we stopped thinking that way? What if we stopped measuring our success and that of others based on how busy we all are? What if your own measure of success was actually measured by our ability to live the life we want on your own terms? What if it were about, not the absence of time during the day, but the existence of time to do with your life as you wish? Or, even more radical, what if we stopped caring about success at all? But that, perhaps, is a sermon for another day.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about how one of the only good things to come from the COVID pandemic is that, for the first time in my working life, many of us can call in sick. I’m sure many of you have been a part of a workplace culture that offers so few sick days (if at all) that you reserve them for medical appointments or caregiving so that you feel you are unable to take them for actually being ill. Or possibly, you have an employer that offers sick days but guilts you or makes you feel like your job may be threatened if you take them? So, you and your co-workers have gone into work sick anyway, even if you know you could get everyone else sick or prolong your own illness.
I remember once pre-COVID, when I was working as the Director of an Alternative Dispute Resolution Program, going to work and facilitating an all-day negotiation conference between two parties with probably five plus people on each side. I didn’t feel like I could miss it, but it was probably one of the times I’ve been the most sick in my life and it was obvious to everyone there. I remember one of the attorneys shaking my hand after the conference and then immediately grabbing some hand sanitizer and apologizing for it, lest I be offended by this gesture. Can you imagine? He was apologizing to me for trying to sanitize away the sizeable germs I likely just transmitted to him. So, it is remarkable that now, many of us, can actually stay home rather than put our co-workers at risk.
Although, I think with the popularity of working from home, many of us still can’t rest. I have watched countless friends with COVID or some other type of illness, feeling absolutely terrible, but also feeling like they still need to be productive. Or, their kids may be sick or they need to provide care for another adult in their lives but yet they must still muddle through and get work done.
And this isn’t just the case for illness either. Many of us don’t know when to stop or have been trained that we cannot stop – that to be rested or take a step back somehow indicates we are less passionate about our jobs or other requirements on our time. Further still, many of us have been taught that to love someone we must sacrifice some part of ourselves. We have to give until it hurts, right? Our children or significant others or other family members won’t truly know we care for them and love them unless we run ourselves ragged in service of them. Unless we prioritize their plans over ours, their comfort and rest over ours.
Have you heard this theory of 10,000 hours? The theory is that to truly be good at something, you must devote 10,000 hours to it. I was recently thinking about this with respect to writing sermons. Say, if I spent two hours every day writing, how long would it take me to get 10,000 hours. It would me over 27 years. So, look for me in the year 2050 and I will be knocking those sermons out of the park.
But what if we let ourselves off the hook for all of that? What if we, like the Nap Bishop, Ms. Hershey, decided to let ourselves rest instead? If we dared to fail or simply leave things unfinished or imperfect? What would that look like?
Today is the end of Daylight Savings Time and this, with the onset of winter, means the days will be getting shorter and colder and the darkness will be sinking in much earlier. During this time of year, I often start thinking about this concept of hygge; which is a Danish somewhat undefinable concept which can somewhat be described as “taking time from the daily rush to be with people you care about – or even yourself – to relax and enjoy life’s quieter pleasures.” Helen Russell, a British journalist who wrote “The Year of Living Danishly,” defines the term as “taking pleasure in the presence of gentle, soothing things,” like a freshly brewed cup of coffee and cashmere socks. Of course, the influx of books and articles in the United States on hygge tend to focus on the consumerism of this concept. What products can you buy to make your life more comfortable, make the winter more bearable and cozy? And, even some of the Danish underpinnings can seem steeped in luxury and privilege, yet, I think there is something we can learn from this concept.
Louisa Thomsen Brits, a British-Danish writer, “speaks of hygge as a state of mindfulness: how to make essential and mundane tasks dignified, joyful, and beautiful, how to live a life connected with loved ones.
Perhaps we can find from this concept inspiration to focus on the joy of this season and slowing down and spending time with yourself or others you care about and how this can be a spiritual act. Finding joy in the mundane task of everyday life and the beauty in our care for ourselves and others can be deeply rewarding, and maybe in the slowing down and going about our lives with more deliberation we can find that sense of relaxation and respite.
People often give the metaphorical advice to put on your own mask first as in an airplane, as a way to indicate that you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. And I do think that is important advice, but I also think it’s okay to take care of yourself first just to take care of yourself. Full stop. The care for yourself does not have to be in service of anyone or anything else. You can simply love and value yourself enough to know in your bones you deserve to be cared for.
Those who have had difficult childhoods or other periods of their lives sometimes wonder what would they be like if someone had cared for them the way they now care for their own children or loved ones in their lives? How would things be different? Well, why not find out? Why not care for yourself the way you wish someone had cared for you? Not because it will make you a better parent, partner, friend, or colleague, but because you deserve it. Because you have worth outside of an of the roles you play, just because you are you.
And you and only you get to decide what gives your life meaning.
Blessed be and may it be so.
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