Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakable Peace

by Sarah Mackenzie

Of course, we must remember: Rest is not the opposite of work, but rather work of a different order. Josef Pieper describes this for us in Leisure: The Basis of Culture: Leisure, it must be clearly understood, is a mental and spiritual attitude—it is not simply the result of external factors, it is not the inevitable result of spare time, a holiday, a weekend or a vacation. It is, in the first place, an attitude of mind, a condition of the soul, and as such utterly contrary to the ideal of “worker” in each and every one of the three aspects under which it was analyzed: work as activity, as toil, as social function. . . . For leisure is a receptive attitude of mind, a contemplative attitude, and it is not only the occasion but also the capacity for steeping oneself in the whole of creation.24 Restful learning is not throwing all care to the wind, eschewing worthy goals such as mastery of the math facts, the ability to read hard books, or cultivating the art of writing persuasively and well. Remember the account of creation—six days the Lord labored before He rested on the Sabbath. Rest, then, is not the absence of work or toil. It is the absence of anxiety or frenzy.