Faith reflection on holidays
Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 01:48AM Had a faith column in the Age two weekends ago - here 'tis.
I’m about to head off on my annual summer holiday. Two whole weeks at my favourite beach shack with my husband, the dog and a couple of dozen library books for company. With assorted offspring and their companions coming and going.
What I’m hoping for this year is exactly what happened last summer. During the mostly cloudy mornings we slept in and then lay in bed with novels and serial cups of tea and got up at 10.30 or so for long beach walks and runs.
Sunny but not too hot afternoons found me frolicking in the surf like a five-year-old and then sitting on our long verandah, alternating between shade and sun, deep in a book. Around 6 o’clock a gin and tonic for me, a beer for him, a glass of wine with dinner, and I didn’t cook once. It doesn’t get much better than that.
But the best thing about last year’s holiday was my change in attitude. I have had a lifetime of perfectly good adult holidays married by guilt. Why should I, my reasoning goes, who have so much in my everyday life, be privileged with four weeks of paid leave every year?
And every summer, it seems, world disasters conspire to make me feel less deserving than ever. I was kayaking in ignorant bliss on the Snowy River the year the tsunami struck. Two years ago I came back from four weeks in India to Black Saturday. In early 2010 there was the horror of Haiti; this year we have had the floods in Queensland, and who knows what else lies ahead?
It is a discipline to take holidays and to let myself switch off – from my own job, from family concerns, from a world full of pain. Just as it is a discipline – and an increasingly difficult one to maintain in our society – to take one day off a week. The Jewish and Christian practice of having a dedicated Sabbath day has much to recommend it – physically, emotionally and spiritually. In the creation stories even God rested on the seventh day. In the gospel tales, Jesus spent time by himself praying, went sailing, enjoyed long meals and conversations with his closest friends.
From a Christian perspective holidays are not simply good for my health. They remind me – as I need to be reminded again and again – that increased compassion and generosity flowing into the world does not depend on me (and just as well too!) It depends on God’s commitment to keep loving the world, come what may. Our role is to recognize where God is at work and to play our part as we can.
Holidays remind me about grace – that God’s love for me and for everyone is constant and unstinting, and will never depend on how much busy work I do. And that love and gratitude are always better motivators than guilt.
Reader Comments (1)
Nice one mum!