We Will Rest! The Art of Escape
Tricia Hersey
Little, Brown Spark, 160 pages
Published November 12, 2024
At a recent retreat, a colleague confessed that he didn’t take time off after knee surgery, continuing prepare and preach each Sunday service. He thought he was doing the “responsible” thing, but working Sundays made him ineligible for short-term disability benefits. He was entitled to the time off, his congregation had paid into the system, and it would have served him well: so why didn’t he take the time off? He couldn’t explain.
Tricia Hersey gets it. In a system that rewards the constant need to produce, in which we wear “busyness as a badge of honor” she insists that We Will Rest! “If you are waiting for permission, listen closely” she whispers. “You are enough right now, and you must rest not to gain more power or to produce more but because it is your divine right to rest.”
Hersey’s 2022 manifesto Rest is Resistance! introduced us to her liberatory work as “the nap bishop.” This follow-up book includes poems, simple practices, snippets of essays and original artwork that celebrate rest’s power to liberate us from “grind culture.” She takes a lighthearted approach, branding herself an “escape artist,” sharing “trickster” strategies, and even drawing a “flip book” of a Black woman at rest. She is, however, deeply serious that rest is an act of radical resistance, a gift of the Divine and a way to honor her enslaved ancestors who could not rest. Tricia Hersey’s new book bears witness to the transformative power of rest — and our weary world rejoices.
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