“When you are waiting for a train, don't keep perpetually looking to see if it is coming. The time of its arrival is the business of the conductor, not yours. It will not come any sooner for all your nervous glances and your impatient pacing, and you will save strength if you will keep quiet. After we discover that the people who sit still on a long railroad journey reach that journey's end at precisely the same time as those who ‘fuss’ continually, we have a valuable piece of information which we should not fail to put to practical use.”
ANNA C. BRACKETT, The Technique of Rest
We wait for so many things: a job, an engagement, a new baby, a holiday, results from a biopsy. If waiting produces patience (like the wise would have us believe) I have apparently not waited enough. For some reason Anna doesn’t suggest languishing with a stack of cement landscaping bricks on your chest while staring up at the grey sky to pass the time. I’m not sure why not. Imagine in your mind a train full of people, some composed and resting in their comfortable seats, others lining the aisles on their backs in various states of discomfort to distract them from thinking about the destination. Shouldn’t it be an option?
Anna C. Brackett, a gifted, American, female philosopher who lived her life in the pursuit of better education for others wrote The Technique of Rest in 1892. What could she possibly know about the modern world?
“May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.” (Col. 1:11 ESV)
My grandaughter continues to improve and although she does not have feeling below her neck she can mostly use her arms and pull up one knee.