What Most People Don’t Understand About Rest (A Lesson from a Red Chair)

The Throne of Truth (or How a Red Chair Schooled Me at the Botanic Garden)

Most people assume rest is about comfort—about soft seats, fewer demands, a little more ease. But I’m learning it’s not. Real rest—the kind that restores you—isn’t found in luxury or leisure. It’s found in attention, in presence, in being rooted. That’s not something I learned from a book or a sermon. Oddly enough, it came from a chair. A bold, red-seated chair in the middle of the Chicago Botanic Garden.

It was 2009, and I was walking through the Chicago Botanic Garden with a group of high school art students. They were ostensibly there to sketch, though a few seemed more focused on texting or perfecting their digital camera angles than studying the leaves. The sun was in its late-afternoon slant, bathing everything in that quiet, golden hush. Then I saw it—a cast iron chair with a red seat so bold it practically declared itself royalty.

I’ve long had a soft spot for chairs—not so much as collectibles, but as quiet observers of human life. Chairs hold us when we’re too tired to stand. They bear witness to dinner-table laughter, tense conversations, long silences. They’re the unsung furniture of reflection. But this one—this particular red-seated chair—was something else. It didn’t just sit there; it held court.

While the students roamed the paths with sketchbooks in hand, I found myself orbiting that chair. I offered my usual commentary—quoting Ruskin on seeing with intention, reminding them that Monet didn’t just paint light, he chased it—but internally, I was being drawn into my own study.

Eventually I sat and sketched, letting the lines flow without worry for precision. And somewhere in the stillness, a phrase came to mind—something Gary Brecka said: “The quickest way to old age is the aggressive pursuit of comfort.” It landed with surprising weight.

I thought of monks sitting on cold stone, of how we often assume that comfort equals peace. But real rest doesn’t come from a well-cushioned chair or a less demanding schedule. It comes from being rooted—anchored in something deeper. For me, that rest is found in Christ, not in a padded seat. That day, the red chair reminded me that stillness isn’t the absence of effort—it’s the presence of attention.

I’ve had similar moments in other chairs—one in a weathered diner after a breakup, another on a wooden bench after a hard conversation. Maybe chairs have been my accidental spiritual directors all along.

Have you ever had a moment like that—unexpected clarity in an ordinary place?