Come Away With Me

A Reading from the Holy Gospel According to Mark

     The apostles gathered together with Jesus
     and reported all they had done and taught. 
     He said to them,
     “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” 
     People were coming and going in great numbers,
     and they had no opportunity even to eat. 
     So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place. 
     People saw them leaving and many came to know about it. 
     They hastened there on foot from all the towns
     and arrived at the place before them.
     When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd,
     his heart was moved with pity for them,
     for they were like sheep without a shepherd;
     and he began to teach them many things.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
    In verdant pastures He gives me repose;
beside restful waters He leads me;
    He refreshes my soul.
-Psalm 23

“And I want to walk with you
On a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high
So won't you try to come
Come away with me and we'll kiss
On a mountaintop
Come away with me
And I'll never stop loving you…”
-Norah Jones

     As I write this reflection, I’m looking out the window at the beautiful mountain town of Crested Butte, Colorado, my happiest of happy places, pictured above.

     The Lord is too good to me... far better than I deserve. I’m most vividly aware of this when I come out here in the summers, but it always takes me a while to acclimate, both to the 10,000-ft. altitude and to a state of true spiritual and physical repose. 

     It’s that period of acclimation that I find both annoying and necessary if I want to follow the Lord, my good shepherd, into a place of revitalizing rest. He constantly offers it, even in the midst of my daily routine, but it requires a surrender on my part that I don’t often give Him.
    
     In today’s Gospel, Jesus calls his disciples out to the wilderness where they can rest after a fast-paced period of daily life and ministry. He knows the secret-- that resting quietly and intimately in the arms of the Father is the only way we accomplish anything of value. In fact, it is ultimately that closeness with the Father which is the only thing of value. How different that claim is from our (very American) obsession with productivity and utility!

     When I first read this passage, the call to rest in a deserted place with the Lord felt so intensely relatable... and yet that rest was proving to be frustratingly elusive.

     This year has been quite a wild ride for me so far: teaching high school during Covidtide, switching jobs, unexpectedly moving… twice… and dealing with a slew of other interior and emotional happenings peppered throughout (I’m sure y’all can relate in your own way). Even in flying out here to Colorado for a much-needed break, travel plans kept changing unexpectedly, and I frantically assumed the role of logistics-coordinator and cross-country cab driver (admittedly fun, but stressful!). I believe God truly delights in challenging me to live out that Chestertonian phrase I claim to love, “an inconvenience is only an adventure, wrongly considered”   ...but I digress.

     Needless to say, my mind and heart have not been in a state of repose for a good long while. And even in finally making it out to this remote mountain town, far away from all the chaos of daily life, calming that interior storm proved to be much more difficult than I expected. The first two days here, my heart was still not at peace. Thoughts and memories and worries about the future consumed my mind and my prayer, and I wasn’t able to enter into the Father-focused rest Christ wanted to give me. 

     It was reading the RSV-CE version of this Sunday’s Gospel that shook me awake. In that translation, Jesus says, “Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while” (my emphasis added). I realized two things:

     I had not come to this place by myself. I was interiorly holding on to all the people and places and worries and connections that I had left behind in Baton Rouge. 

     The word “lonely” was, to be honest, scary.

     The first two days I was here, I was still checking my social media every 5 minutes for notifications, looking at everyone else’s lives, thinking about all the community I left behind, and obsessing over all the things that might happen when my vacation is over. I knew I needed to shut the phone down and really disconnect, but I was afraid to.

     Why?

     Simple. 

     I am a certified, grade-A extrovert, and FOMO is the loud, obnoxious cry of my people. 

     As beautiful as these places I travel to are, one of the most important things to me is human community. And it takes a lot for me to let go of that, even for something as obviously vital as rest and repose in the arms of the LORD.

     It was time to take a leap, albeit a small one, and give my phone to one of my travel companions so that she could shut down and passcode-protect my social media. 

     Although it probably doesn’t sound like much, that simple act of surrender opened up a whole new world of peace and presence, focused on the insanely enchanting world right in front of me and the gift of rest and intimacy God so desperately wanted to give. Practically speaking, too, it gave me time to read Jesus of Nazareth, a book I had been wanting to read for a while, and to discover a passage in which Pope Benedict XVI comments on this very Gospel:

     The crowds had left everything in order to come hear God’s word. They are people who have opened their heart to God and to one another; they are therefore ready to receive the bread with the proper disposition.

     It was only in letting go of the cares and concerns of daily life that these followers of Jesus were able to receive what God wanted to give to them-- the only thing they truly needed: Himself. Similarly, it was only in letting go of what I left behind in Baton Rouge that my heart was able to be open to those who were right in front of me: namely, God (almost flaunting his glory in the overwhelming beauty of these hills)… but also, my travel companions. 

     God offers us this rest every day, this invitation to drink deeply of Living Water… to feed on the Bread of Life… to be filled with no lack of good things. We don’t need to fly to Colorado to find that peace and rest, but we do need to give him the time of day and honestly assess what might be keeping us from entering into his rest. Then, we have to intentionally let go, even if for a little while, trusting that He won’t leave us lonely in that lonely place, but that it will be filled-to-overflowing with the resplendent light of His glory and peace. 

     If we do that, we shall not want. That’s a promise.

     In the peace of Jesus,

     Grace


About the Author: Grace Krause was raised near Mobile, Alabama, and moved to Baton Rouge eight years ago. Before moving to the capital city, Grace earned a degree in Theology & Catechesis from Franciscan University of Steubenville. She has spent her years in Baton Rouge teaching theology and church history at St. Michael High School, but she recently accepted a campus ministry position at Christ the King at LSU as the Director of RCIA, Confirmation, Service Teams and Other Intellectual Formation. When she isn’t busy at work, Grace can be found basking in the glory of Louisiana culture (music, food, dancing, people and Catholic heritage), being a regular on the Quizzical Papist podcast and co-hosting the Pints with Chesterton podcast.
How do you like your coffee? Colombian roast, black as night with two ice cubes.
What are the top three songs on your playlist? “O.P. Jebediah” (or anything, really) by The Dip, “No Place to Hide” by Alison Krauss & Union Station and “Jammin’” by Bob Marley & the Wailers.
Who is your favorite superhero? Meh. Not really a superhero fan… I think JP2 was kind of a superhero.
What is a random life hack you have? Letting my friends choose my Screen Time Limits passcode for social media.

Learn More About Red Stick Catholics


The Well is a weekly reflection series from Red Stick Catholics that was created to allow young adults from the Diocese of Baton Rouge to reveal how God is speaking to them through prayer and Scripture. Each reflection contains the upcoming Sunday’s Gospel, a reflection written by a young adult from the Diocese of Baton Rouge and prompts for how to pray with the Gospel and reflection during the week. If you are interested in writing a reflection, please email Nicole at [email protected] .