The Music of Rest

The Music of Rest– Learning Grace in the Silence
A reflection on rhythm, aging, and rest

Where is the rest in your life? Not the vacation kind. Not sleep, exactly. But rest as a rhythm. As part of the music of your days.

The question caught me off guard one morning—not because I didn’t know the answer, but because I did. I had just jumped out of bed too early, misread the clock, and launched myself into a day that hadn’t even begun yet. A whole hour ahead of myself… and somehow, still behind.

So I sat down. Not to work, but to wonder: What happened to rest?

The Forgotten Notes

I once studied music. And like any musician, I learned early that the rests matter just as much as the notes. Whole rests, quarter rests, even the tiny sixteenth note rests with their delicate flags—all carry meaning. They give the music its rhythm. They create space to breathe.

Without them, everything would collapse into noise.

But here in my later years, I find myself making noise far too often. My phone is always nearby. A book open. A word puzzle half-solved.

The conductor in my head keeps waving, and the oboe and timpani won’t stop.

The music drones.

The rest gets pushed aside.

And if I’m honest, I don’t know how to stop the racket.

Rest, Revisited

There was a time I knew rest instinctively.

As a baby, I rested in the womb, rocked by someone else’s movement, nourished by someone else’s breath. That early rest wasn’t earned. It was simply given.

As a toddler, I’d play hard and fall asleep on the floor mid-action. No guilt. No delay. Just rest when it was time.

But then came the bells. School. Schedules. Do first, rest later. A rhythm imposed by institutions that had little interest in how my body actually felt. For years—decades even—that pattern continued. Work now, rest later. Always later.

Even now in retirement, that old rhythm runs deep. There’s always something to do. Something to plan. Something to fix. Or scroll. Or check. Or finish.

Digital Drumming and False Rest

It’s a strange thing—how technology promises to help us rest, but really just fills the space where rest ought to be.

I sit down to take a break and find myself thumbing through my phone, chasing dopamine hits from a bouncing puzzle ball or a matching pair of fruits. Sometimes I call it “rest,” but I know better.

It’s not the silence of rest—it’s the static of distraction.

There’s no space to hear the real music of life if the oboe insists on playing a solo. And yet, I allow it. I even schedule it.

What would happen if I sat without the puzzle? Without the scrolling? What might rise in the silence if I weren’t so quick to fill it?

The Grace of Shared Silence

In an orchestra, rest is communal. Everyone has to pause at the same time. If even one player refuses, the music falters.

I’ve been thinking about that lately in terms of grace. Because true rest feels like grace—it’s not something we force or manufacture. It’s something we enter, together or alone, when we finally stop striving.

Sometimes the most sacred thing we can do for one another is to rest beside each other.

Not talk. Not fix. Just rest.

A friend sits by the bed of a loved one dying. She doesn’t fill the room with noise. She simply stays. Breathes. Holds a hand. That, too, is rest. And grace.

Rhythm in the Second Half of Life

Aging offers a chance to rediscover the rhythm we lost. But it’s not automatic.

Some people fill their retirement with just as much noise as their working years. Others drift, unsure how to handle the quiet. The absence of the schedule reveals something unexpected—how little we know about true rest.

Rest is not idleness.

It’s the moment in the music that holds tension, potential, and space. It’s the silence that gives meaning to the note that follows.

What if aging is an invitation to make music again—not just with activity, but with pauses?

The Obstacles We Create

Why do we resist rest? I don’t know about you…I can only speak for myself here.

Because it feels unproductive. Because it forces me to be still with myself. Because in the quiet, old questions echo. Losses return. The speed of life covers up so much pain that silence tends to amplify.

But grace is often waiting in that quiet.

Rest asks us to stop performing. To stop proving. To trust that we are still valuable when we’re doing nothing at all. Not earning. Not achieving. Just being.

It’s vulnerable. And that’s why it’s holy.

A Small Practice

Lately, I’ve been experimenting. Once a day, I sit in my chair without a phone, book, or list. Just a few minutes. Just me and the silence.

At first, I fidget. But sometimes, after a while, something soft settles in. My breath slows. My shoulders drop. My mind doesn’t race.

It feels like… grace. Unearned. Unexpected. Enough.

Maybe that’s all rest is—receiving grace without argument.

An Invitation to Pause

You don’t need to schedule a sabbatical to find rest. You don’t need a retreat center or a silent monastery.

You just need a few moments of real pause.

Let the conductor in your head lower the baton. Let the music breathe. Let the rests have their say.

Grace often speaks in the silence between the notes.

This week, try one true rest. No screen. No words. Just a pause. Just notice it. You might be surprised by what you hear.

And if you missed last week’s post on grace in aging, you can read it here. Both are part of the same conversation.

The Music of Rest– Learning Grace in the Silence A reflection on rhythm, aging, and rest