How can we imagine an eternal rest when we can’t even rest for a few moments now? We may look forward to a vacation so that we can “rest and recuperate,” but that way of putting it shows that the point of rest is getting back to work. Perhaps you’ve felt listlessness on the third week of vacation. That’s when “sleeping in” has lost its charm, and you’re looking for things to do. If Heaven is like that, it probably sounds like Hell. Perhaps eternal rest is unimaginable because it calls for an entirely different mode of life. I think that’s what we see with Gandalf here—he needs to have a long
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