Another very good lectionary essay from JwJ website
Gabrielle Dean
The Gift of Rest
For Sunday July 18, 2021
Psalm 89:20-37
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
In a New York Times article this past April, organizational psychologist Adam Grant identified the “dominant emotion of 2021” as “languishing.” He went on to describe this unfortunate state in a variety of ways: a sense of emptiness. Despondency. A lack of hope. Aimlessness and joylessness. The “dulling of delight” and the “dwindling of desire.”
At around the same time, researchers noted that roughly sixty percent of Americans are experiencing pandemic-related insomnia right now, despite the gains we’ve made in vaccinating our population, lowering nationwide mortality rates, and resuming some measure of normal life. In other words, what began over a year ago as a natural flight-or-fight response to a global state of emergency has now morphed into something shapeless and sinister. We’ve lost a sense of balance and rhythm. We can’t get started. We can’t wind down. We’re anxious, sleepless, overstimulated, and bored.