A Just Economy & Rest as Resistance 

“To rest in a capitalist world takes practice and meticulous care.” 
“Rest is my foundation to build, invent, restore, and imagine the world I want to see” 
 – The Nap Ministry’s Rest Deck: 50 Practices to Resist Grind Culture, by Tricia Hersey 

Will you read this blog post in one sitting? Will you be able to?  

For the past several years, “the battle for attention” has wrought havoc on our brains and bodies, devolving into a multitude of micro-skirmishes designed to distract us with a bombardment of meaningful, trivial, fabricated, and useless information. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second even: notifications. No age group is exempt from this capitalist predation on our fractured attention. Billions of dollars are funneled into the “attention economy,” and yet we, the consumers, can only see the cost at the end of the day. Mentally and spiritually, the diagnoses and data are in: we are left bereft. Ironically, if you’d like reams of articles and information from neuroscientists and social epidemiologists on the cognitive decline rendered by information overload, Google has got you covered. The short version is this: constantly absorbing too much, too fast, leads to lack of focus, burnout, permanent chemical disruptions in our brain reward centers, and cognitive decline. Our precious human bodies and our wondrous brains are not designed to process the amount of information thrown at us, intentionally addicting us to diminishing returns of dopamine hits. I’ll ruefully admit that I couldn’t even write this paragraph without checking my phone. 

But Beloved, I have some wonderful news: our lack of processing capacity in our current digital age is not a deficiency in our makeup. We are created for depth, and we all possess a well within us that can deepen into beautiful, untold wonders of imagination, problem-solving, resilience, and creativity. This well is designed to sustain itself with living waters – if we allow it to. Does your body, brain, and soul still remember that Sabbath is your birthright? That means Sabbath is our starting place, the well spring, the fount. This foundation is the opposite of the “attention/distraction economy.” 

Those in power enrich themselves through our collective distraction, burnout, and overwork. Capitalism is designed that way, and the battle of the attention economy is simply the latest, violent attempt to keep us from noticing that we do not have what by right should readily belong to all: housing, health care, living wages, robust worker protections, and so much more.  This election season, as in recent years past, the information bombardment will include an overabundance of “read-me-now” headlines, inflammatory social media posts, negative and misleading ads, and comprehensive efforts to have you believe another world isn’t possible. 

When our capitalist system tries to monetize our attention down to the second, to deleterious effect, the most effective thing we can do is lean into what our living God grants us a priori: rest. And in this system, that rest will look and feel like resistance. But we need it – now, more than ever.  

When we are undistracted, when we are focused, when we dream together, when we build solidarity in community together, when we organize together…beloved, we have so much more power than the war profiteers, racists, and monied gatekeepers currently preventing a liberation economy marked by abundance, sustainability, and reparation. 

“How do we hold on to what matters in a distracted age?” is the subtitle to the first linked article in this post. We know our answer: Recover, rest, bathe in Sabbath…as resistance, so that we might resist and, glory be beloved, build up a new world where liberation (and rest!) is made manifest for all. 

The United Church of Christ is committed to plumbing these depths together with you. Together we can push back against those who police and punish your Sabbath birthright. 

This election season, as the temperature rises and the messaging becomes more and more frenetic, take intentional time to unplug so that you might remember your Why, and God’s purposes for humanity. These are questions that won’t have full answers at any poll, but they will drive you forward before and after. Resist the narratives designed to demoralize and distract and overwhelm the dream that another way is possible. Resist and rest. A radical reorientation, liberation, and just economy begins there. Deep, hard, life-giving and life-saving work.  

“Go in courage to lie down, in sacred defiance of a world that would rather own your body than protect it. May you say ‘no’ and ‘I’m leaving’ and ‘I’m not saving this,’ your boundaries never predicated on apology. In a time of frenzied activity, may you choose stillness, and this breath, and this silence…and sleep, that you might dream. Amen.” 
– From Black Liturgies, by Cole Arthur Riley 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rev. Seth Wispelwey is the Minister for Economic Justice of the United Church of Christ.