Lord willing, by day’s end I will be sitting on the dock at the family cottage. So I have vacation on the brain.
Whenever anyone asks me about this cottage I answer that I married well – into a family that built a simple little cottage on Lake Muskoka about 60 years ago. The farm family I grew up in didn’t do much vacationing – certainly not every year – and usually it was a trip to visit distant relatives.
However for the 46 years of our married life our family has spent at least a precious week or two or three at the family cottage every year.
Over those years I have learned the wisdom in the observation of Robert Orben: “A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it.” Certainly that doesn’t describe all vacations, but it should some. Rest is a very necessary basic human need.
When God created the world the Bible says He worked for six days (please let’s not get sidetracked in an argument about six-day creation – another time) and then rested on the seventh. Because almighty God got tired from working so hard? Hardly. God rested because creation wasn’t fully complete until God created the seventh day as a day of rest. Rest is as much a necessary part of creation as giraffes and peaches.
We humans were created to be co-workers in the world with our creator God and we were created to be co-resters with Him as well. That’s why a day of vacation/rest each week is an important ingredient in healthy living. Working 24/7/365 or not regularly setting aside a day for rest is a recipe for mental and physical and relational ill health. As these quotes I found affirm:
“Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.”
“A break from everything is much needed every once in a while.”
So “sabbath” rest – whether on Sunday or Jewish Sabbath or some other set-aside day of the week is one form of vacation and it doesn’t require going anywhere except away from busy-ness and worrying.
Beyond just rest, vacations are a necessity because getting out of our familiar routines (ruts?) and away from the pressures of daily life/work helps us reflect on our lives, faith and values, revaluate and reorder our priorities, dream new possibilities, think more freely, remember more clearly, and feel more deeply. Vacations can help us connect more deeply with God and family/friends. Vacations help us live beyond just existing.
“Trips and vacations are so much more. These experiences show you what’s possible and challenge you to examine the paths you’ll take in the future.” (Blake Mycoskie)
“The vacation we often need is freedom from our own mind.” (Jack Adam Weber)
“Some of your best ideas come when you’re on vacation.” (Gautam Singhania)
Obviously travelling vacations are a wonderful opportunity to achieve that “break from everything” we all need.
“Vacations mean a change of pace, a gentleness with ourselves, a time of rest and renewal, and a time to stretch ourselves and encounter new people, new lands, new ways, and new options.” (Anne Wilson Schaef)
However many of us are unable to travel much. In recent years a new word – “stay-cation” – was coined to encourage people to do their vacation travelling closer to home. But for health, financial, responsibilities, or other reasons some of us can’t even do much of such closer-to-home vacationing.
The good news is that you can vacation without going anywhere.
“The holiest of all holidays are those kept by ourselves in silence and apart, the secret anniversaries of the heart, when the full tide of feeling overflows.” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
Especially in summertime, when most of us have less hectic schedules, it is possible to set aside/schedule regular blocks of time to “vacation” in place by doing something different from your usual routine: to read, pray, meditate, go for walks, paint, write, make or listen to music, etc.
At a pastor’s retreat many years ago a speaker told us that each person has their own unique avenues into connecting with reality beyond the daily grind – practices or activities that make you feel part of realities – transcendence, God – beyond the physical. For many walking in the woods or canoeing on a quiet lake or listening to inspiring music brings awareness that one is part of something much bigger and more profound than just physicality.
If you can find and develop your avenues into transcendence it will open a whole new world of accessible but highly rewarding “vacationing” that doesn’t require elaborate planning and travel. Again, the key is to at least temporarily set aside the weights of daily living in order to soar in your mind and soul.
“Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.” (Maya Angelou)
Two final bits of “vacation” wisdom to ponder:
“Laughter is an instant vacation.” Milton Berle
“When all else fails, take a vacation.”