”Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”    Matthew 11:28

The ground has rested: Throughout the long winter months, while the ground is at rest, restorative work occurs deep beneath the surface in preparation for new growth. Rest allows for the renewal to come. By design, physical rest is an essential need of the human body. It is meant to play a participating part of our daily rhythms which allows the body to rebuild and the mind to refresh for each new day. Without rest, there is no renewal.

Sometimes we need to enter longer seasons of rest that echoe the cycles of nature. Maybe you have been in one yourself. After a difficult season, a traumatic experience, or even prolonged busyness, it’s essential to be attentive to the rest our minds and bodies require for restoration.

A season of rest is not a passive one. Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11:28 reveals that there’s an exchange between him and us that must occur. It’s only when we come to him and lay our burdens down that our hearts fully receive the rest he promises. His rest re-forms us. When we allow his rest to inhabit us, our body can literally change. Our muscles may soften, our shoulders drop as tension releases, our inhale may deepen and the knot in our stomach might dissipate.

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Libby John is an artist partner with Art House North and is the director of Vivid Artistry and host of the Art and Faith Podcast. Subscribe to her weekly devotionals HERE.

“Come away with me. Let us go alone to a quiet place and rest for a while.” Mark 6:31

Lent is a season of withdrawing from the noise and finding refuge in God’s presence, It is not a religious requirement but rather a resetting of our daily rhythms to align our lives and hearts to beat more closely in time with God’s. It’s a season of being mindful about taking refuge in the stillness of his presence. Lent is intended to interrupt our self-focused habits and is often paired with fasting or giving up something. It’s a time of repentance of the ways we’ve allowed our priorities to take precedence over God’s will for us. We’ve been lulled to sleep by the industrialized, efficiency driven algorithms of the world. When we disrupt these numbing algorithms we’ve fallen prey to, like new growth emerging in spring, our senses awaken and come alive to the wonder filled rhythms of the One leading us closer to Him. Lent translates to mean “spring time.” Over the next 6 weeks, we will meditate on rhythms of restoration by contemplating the parallel metaphors of a garden emerging from winter and being prepared for spring. Through poetry, movement meditation, prayerful prompts, and imagery, we will retreat into a time of rest and renewal.

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Libby John is an artist partner with Art House North and is the director of Vivid Artistry and host of the Art and Faith Podcast. Subscribe to her weekly devotionals HERE.

This is an excerpt of an essay written by Joy Ike from comment.org. Joy has partnered with Art House North in the past through the songwriter workshop and has music on our spotify playlist! She is an incredible songwriter/singer/artist that uses music to process and enter into meaningful conversations. Read the full work HERE.

This summer, while on my porch, I experienced a drive-by shooting for the first time.

Germantown, my beloved neighbourhood here in Philadelphia, has probably been like most inner-city neighbourhoods this past year: destitute, depressed, run down, pressure-cooked. I live on a high-traffic street and a block or two from the dividing line of what would be considered “safe Germantown” and “unsafe Germantown.” On one side of my house is my neighbour, who has become a dear friend and a teammate of sorts: we hope together. On the other side is an abandoned house by the corner, and beside that, a street that has become known as the local epicentre of crime and drug dealing. We’ll call it “T Street.” As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept across the world, I’ve watched as the drug culture has slowly turned the bend and crept around my street corner, like a shadow trying to cover more territory.

And this is where my pandemic story begins.

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This is an excerpt from the founder of Art House America, Andi Ashworth’s “Havens of Grace: Hospitality in a Busy World.” Read the whole piece HERE.

It’s my privilege to speak to you this morning about hospitality, a very large and wide-ranging topic that I’ve been learning about since my husband, Charlie, and I became followers of Jesus in 1982. We lived in Sacramento at the time, and one of the first beautiful things I encountered in our new life was the hospitality of the people in our first church. It wasn’t like anything I’d known before. Nothing fancy or formal—it was just a natural, open-hearted, sharing way of life where people took care of each other and welcomed strangers like us.

We were very wounded birds when we came into the church, and the love they showed our family as they invited us into their homes and shared their lives was like medicine. It was a new kind of community and it was life-giving.

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In my time of contemplation and reflection with God, I gravitate toward music without words so I can pause to hear what the Spirit is speaking, instead of lyrics of a song guiding me how to think or feel. This album is nourishing to my soul. LISTEN HERE >>

— Madi Reimer

It is gift to me to have this song covered by someone I respect so deeply, and beautifully so.  Justin and I started making music at about the same time, and his creativity and art have encouraged and challenged me for many years.  Justin did a night of stories and music at Art House North a few years ago around the release of his epic book and music project CMYK, and I can still remember some of the moving conversations we had long after that were sparked by that night - he is generous, insightful, rooted in community, and honest among other things. 

— Sara Groves

From Justin: "Since 2003, just about every musical project of mine has featured a cover song I felt captured the heart of the project.

This song has spoken to and saved me in numerous ways over the years. During the season that seeded these songs, @grovesroad’s “The Long Defeat" became a kind of theme. When I no longer believed in my own songs, I came back and played this one.

Special thanks to Lewis Patzner for once again making what I do better than it would ever be without his cello, his musicality and his humor. 
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