Edward Burne-Jones: Night (1870)

"I'm planting those flowers this morning."

The Muse and I have several flats of plants sitting beneath our sacred apricot tree. We bought them over the past two weeks in fits of the usual enthusiasm, as Spring started emerging, imagining that they’d somehow just plant themselves, I guess. It’s been more than a week now, and there they sit, still not planted. We love to plant. It’s been our shared ritual since that first Spring we spent together back in that little apartment overlooking The Willamette, just downwind from where my prior relationship played out its EndDays. We planted flowers to thumb our noses at what had so recently seemed like the end. They represented our new beginning, and planting them then seemed like the opposite of work. It was renewing and rewarding, and reassured us that we still inhabited a welcoming world, regardless of the EndDays still trailing their toxicity along just behind us. Planting day always feels like a DayOfRest to us, yet I’d still been resisting engaging.

I spent time earlier this morning, warmly anticipating planting those flowers today. For some reason, I have been dancing around this responsibility, as if the effort might overwhelm rather than reassure and renew me. It occurred to me, as I sat, anticipating in predawn darkness, that I might have been thinking about that planting as if it would entail work instead of play. Maybe I was mistaking the opportunity for an obligation, as if I would be realizing somebody else’s objective rather than my own by engaging in it? EndDays can twist perspective, making play seem like work, and even potential salvation seem like impending damnation. Mistaking a DayOfRest for a day of even holy obligation can ruin an experience. EndDays can easily make fools of us.

EndDays can and often do redefine the very meaning of rest. Time feels short then, so idleness can surely seem like the wasted effort it isn’t necessarily. I might feel even more moved to continue contributing, to not let any precious time slip away to idleness, when every second feels damned precious. But I do not want to labor to complete exhaustion, however lofty my inspiring ideal. The cure might not lie in forced idleness, but in focus. Just like not all effort can be properly categorized as work, not all work requires great effort. Some work, LightWork, for instance, seems relatively effortless in comparison, and one might swear that LightWork requires essentially no exertion at all. Angels never tire, not because they laze around all hours, but because their work entails what they must experience as play. They do not expend energy, but gain it from their efforts. They feel more rested after a shift than they felt when grabbing their lunch pails to head out the door that morning. The old Zen adage comes to mind: Until it’s fun, it’s better left undone.

LightWork does not exhaust like we were told that real work should. It rewards rather than punishes. It promises rather than goads. It heralds new beginnings. It offers opportunities for the world to become more like the way it was always supposed to be. It might not offer any tangible compensation for effort, but it still pays in ways infinitely more satisfying than cashing any paycheck. I imagine that God, having created the basics in those first six days, spent the seventh in something other than mere idling. He must have had a jillion little fine tunings to attend to, small quirks that always appear in first use. Creating a universe in just six days must have left a backlog of chores competing for divine intervention. We’re each familiar with these sorts of chores, ones we warmly welcome. We engage in them as if they were a form of loving because they are. Such nurturing serves as the finest imaginable rest, not idling, but actually improving something.

Many people presently feel as though they’ve been impressed into the role of preserving Western Civilization. That’s a heady assignment, and one not even distantly resembling idleness. Yet many suddenly feel as though they’ve found their true calling, or that their true calling has finally found them. The frustration that first fueled their engagement quickly turned into a passion capable of transforming even drudgery into sublimity. We are suddenly masters of situations we formerly never suspected required mastery to sustain. We are suddenly recognizably We, The People again, members in more than merely decent standing of the ideal for which this nation was founded. Our justifiable pride propels us into play, to imagine and implement ways to preserve this union against its enemies, who seem to be primarily of the domestic variety at the moment. We might be damned from the outset of this contest. We might have waited, idle, far too long to mount a successful defense, but our passions are finally at play. On the seventh day, we parade in the streets. We raise a ruckus. We make a fuss because we’re Us, The People, and no longer merely idle observers anymore. We defiantly rest and feel refreshed!

Because much effort still lies before me, I’d better learn to play. Because our opponents think it their responsibility to oppress us, it falls upon us to resist with every ounce of indifference we can muster. In this paper/rock/scissors contest, only play can trump, and anticipating heavy work and onerous responsibilities seems more likely to defeat than energize us, leaving flats of flowers unplanted beneath the sacred apricot tree. EndDays demand better of us, the ability to play our way through to deliverance. They demand that we embrace our elevating intentions, to refuse to see an endless slavery before us, but play, along with the opportunity to engage in ways that refresh this weary EndDays context while also ennobling us.

I’m planting those flowers this morning.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #EndDays, #PureSchmaltz