REST

JEFFREY HILDNER,—NEW YORK CITY

This is my life. On the go. On the railroad! Continually shuffling along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor between New York City and Boston. I often describe my life, in a spirit of fun, as one big blur—one 24-frames-per-second film. But a BEAUTIFUL film because even though my life is full of whirling, nonstop demands to be here and be there, or do this and do that—full of rewarding opportunities and calls for purposeful actions!—it floors me the way every component hangs together and all zips along so amazingly on track, though it doesn't mean it's always easy to stay upbeat and relaxed about it all. Sometimes it's hard. (Sometimes the train derails.) It takes prayer.

I took this shot through the window from the train as I gazed out to the lead-gray world of magic light and steel locomotion/counter-motion in a rush of contemplation and thoughts and dreams and "what-if's" about my life and how I would like to live it and what more I would like to do and accomplish. And do you know what I felt? Alive! And at the same time, at peace. Yes, my life is in constant motion. But, it's also at rest. "God rests in action," the book says (Science and Health, p. 519). Which means: Action and rest make a perfect match, and the divine Spirit's authorship and design of my life is dynamic, ongoing, and I'm entitled to feel that peace/rest/dynamic flow as I zoom along the train tracks of my life....

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