BBC Radio 4 2016-09-28

Good morning. We’re told that one in three of us check our smartphones in the middle of the night. How ludicrous, I thought, until I realised I’d done it myself. Not often, since I’ve learned that you don’t get back to sleep very quickly. But why do it at all? Is it because we’ve lost the capacity to rest well?

This week a new survey of 18,000 people worldwide reported that two-thirds of us want more rest. A fascinating programme The Anatomy of Rest explored the subject here on Radio 4 yesterday. Extroverts and introverts alike claim that their most restful activities are things people often do alone – reading, listening to music, having a bath. Yet there’s something in us which craves connection with other people so much that we interrupt our lives to seek it. 18-30 year olds check their phones on average 85 times a day, often for less than 30 seconds, not a very restful way of living. Yet it’s not just that age group who do this. Someone once came into our kitchen at home and found all the members of my family, me included, looking at our phones rather than each other. We have a shaming digital photo to record the event.

I recall learning about rest on my first ever visit to a religious community well over 40 years ago. It was a contemplative community of Anglican nuns in Wales with a rhythm of life which held work, prayer, sleep and rest in balance. Whenever I stay in a religious community now and enter the pattern of life of monks or nuns I often sleep better and feel more rested. In this secular age monasteries and convents have challenges coping with the number of guests who want to experience something of living alongside them. Many visitors are not especially religious but are drawn by a well-ordered way of living. But the monastic life is not a commodity. It’s a discipline focussed on prayer and the worship of God.

The Rule of St Benedict, a repository of wisdom for monastic living around 15 centuries old, has found new admirers in recent decades for its balance, common sense and good humour. It begins with the word “Listen”. A wise person listens well, is attentive and not continuously distracted by other demands. Listening and restfulness seem closely connected. In the Letter of James in the New Testament there’s an instruction “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger”. Put that into practice and I think we might learn a bit more about rest. Certainly it’s advice I need to heed.