What is most needed

Rest as imaginative resistance for our tender spirits

Over this past weekend, my husband and I went to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. It’s something we have wanted to do since we arrived in Germany four years ago but we knew our young children were not ready to witness to these horrors. We opted not to take our girls. They are too young to witness to these things, too young to know that people can be so evil. I want them to believe that there’s enough humanity in the world, even when it seems the opposite is true.

There was a lot of this history I didn’t know about concentration camps. Dachau was one of the very first camps. My mind races to the gas chambers and there was one there but it was a much later addition. (You can see it above marked Brausebad.) And though there was a lot of death on this soil, that particular chamber was never used.

Dachau was not created as an extermination camp. That horror would come later. This camp set up as a work camp. It was imagined to be a place of reform. It was a place where the Nazi leadership convinced their more loyal citizens that these wayward souls locked within these walls were working toward change. A primary conviction of that reform was to be found in hard labor. The door to the camp, through the main gate, pronounced in hard steel, Arbeit macht frei. The idea being that somehow through tireless labor some kind of freedom will emerge. It’s not clear if they actually released any reformed prisoners through these gates into freedom. I hold that hope, tenderly.

These thoughts are bouncing around in my head next to the curious space I shared with a directee earlier this week. Their questions centered around productivity. They feel called to contribute to the common good and want to exert as much effort as possible to what is most needed for this world and humanity.

As we kept wondering about this desire, they were able to admit that they can’t do everything. Of course not. As much as any of us might wish to do all that we can to make this world better, we just don’t have that capacity to do it alone. This was something they knew already but we all need a reminder sometimes. We all get overwhelmed by the needs of this world and feel like we should be able to do more.

They confessed that they were tired. Exhausted might have even have been the word that was used. They craved rest.

I thought of these prisoners that never knew if they would ever leave this camp. They didn’t know what to expect. It was all unknown. Even after the camp was liberated, I listened to a woman explain that she felt relief, but it wasn’t joy. That wasn’t something she had the capacity for anymore. She could only feel relief that it was over. These thoughts flew through my heart but were not added to this wondering. Instead, I asked about what rest feels like.

I’m still thinking about that question for myself especially after finishing Tricia Hersey’s Rest is Resistance. Rest is not, as defined in this manifesto, embedded in the

“toxic idea that we are resting to recharge and rejuvenate so we can be prepared to give more output to capitalism. What we have internalized as productivity as been informed by a capitalist, ableist, patriarchal system. Our drive and obsession to always be in a state of ‘productivity’ leads us to a path of exhaustion, guilt and shame.”

It is more than naps. This is repeated again and again but I confess that it is hard for me to imagine what alternative there is to an escape or reprieve from everything else. My directee echoed something that had been said only a week prior in my peer supervision group. So that when it was said again, I heard it again this phrase had greater power. It called to me.

What is it that is most needed? My directee almost whispered the question, though it was much louder in my ear. As spiritual directors, we are always bracketing. Remembering that there are things that we hear that are ours. It is our stuff that we have to untangle from what is being said by our directee so that we can hear what is really being said. What is most true for this beloved child of God.

I asked to hear it again and it came out a little louder, a little more confident. And then, there was a pause. I wondered what the Holy Spirit was up to when the silence was interrupted with this curiosity. I listened with my whole heart as they said, What is mine to do? I could do so many things and done themes I want to do it all but I want to know what is uniquely mine to do.

The prisoners of Dachau were so exhausted by their labors that there was little else. A few of them managed to sneak in cameras to take pictures of their experience. Some were able to find paper and pen to draw. Expect for these tiny creative impulses, there was no escape. No space for their full humanity. Their work was defined by oppressors. They had no freedom to explore their own passions and desires. They were reduced to a number, denied of their inherent belovedness.

It is a history that is repeating. This is happening now, Bruce Springsteen repeated again and again at his Manchester concert.

It is happening again.

Dachau became the model for future concentration camps after it came under the command of the SS. Across the very small river, just over the small bridge outside of the camp gate, there were the SS training grounds. Just past that steel slogan, there was a school to instruct these SS officers in violence and hate. It seems impossible that these things happened then, but we haven’t quite learned these lessons. Hate and violence are still instructing us.

What is most needed? That question rings in my ears even though I’m completely uncertain of the answer. I don't know what these things will bring. I can’t fathom how this hatred will grow and fear for what we are teaching our children. It doesn’t feel like a time to rest. There is too much to do. Too much at stake. Too much that infuriates and annoys that I can’t manage to pray anything other than “What the actual f*uck?”

Imagination is how the Nap Bishop concludes her first book. That’s the answer. We need imagination when nothing computes, when we find ourselves stuck in impossibility. We need that creative space for creativity and wonder.

We must rest because it is only in our dream spaces that we are able to summon that creative resistance. We need that space to push beyond the edges and “believe that everything is possible. We can’t continue to stay stuck in the literal, afraid to let our minds and hearts wander to the liminal space waiting for us when we dream and rest.” Tricia Hersey insists that this is the antithesis of productivity. It is what happens when we step outside of what is expected and do what is most needed by allowing our bodies creative space to be fully human.

As you consider what is most needed for you, I invite you to wander through these words of poetry. (There’s a link below about how to pray with it, if that’s your desire right now.) What are you throwing your arms open to right now? What feels most important or most needed? What can you imagine?

• Words with wonder: For when a poem becomes prayer.

• Epiphany stories: Church focuses on epiphanies only at one time of year, but maybe you need one now.

• The stories we tell: This is also out of season, but there is a viewfinder prayer practice in there that might help you find your focus in answering that question: what is most needed?

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