As the “dog days of summer” come upon us, many people head to the lake or their favorite summer vacation spot. How can this time of vacation be of true service to our human nature rather than just an escape from our lives?
One surprising reality of American culture is how many people do not utilize all of their paid vacation days in a given year (41%, according to a 2013 study). What’s going on here? Clearly it is good for us to be responsible and to work hard. But this statistic reveals something about our attitude towards work. For many, the clear objectives, recognizable rewards for doing something well, and the camaraderie of working together towards a goal become the sole source of meaning for their lives.
Indeed, work is very good — it is a way in which we can cooperate in God’s creation and build up his Kingdom. God made man and woman in his own image and likeness (Gn 1:27) and gave them dominion over the earth (Gn 1:26). Yet the high point of creation wasn’t the sixth day when humans were made, but the seventh day, when God “rested” (Gn 2:2). We were not made simply to work, but ultimately we were made to enter into the contemplation of God, to enter into the deepest form of rest in union with God.
As many of us enjoy vacations, we seek rest. Are we merely trying to get re-charged so we can go back to work, as if work is all that matters? Perhaps there is a deeper reality we could seek during these times of rest. Philosopher Josef Pieper believed that “leisure” is what we were really made for and that authentic leisure can save us from being consumed by work. In his book, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, he states that “the world of work begins to become — threatens to become — our only world, to the exclusion of all else. The demands of the working world grow ever more total, grasping ever more completely the whole of human existence.”
The antidote to this is authentic leisure, something like contemplation that leaves us open to being awed by the world, by others, and by God. It is to step out of the utilitarian mindset where only things we deem as “useful” are pursued. (I once had a friend joke “What do you want to hang out about?”) To pursue true leisure is a particular a way of being, not just an absence of work for a time. “Leisure is only possible when we are at one with ourselves. We tend to overwork as a means of self-escape, as a way of trying to justify our existence” Pieper says.
We don’t need to justify our existence, rather it is better to receive our existence as a gift. This is made possible when we have a relationship with God. In fact, Pieper believed that it’s forgetting about the worship of God that leads to the inability to truly enjoy life, and instead we get caught in an endless series of “entertainments” that ultimately leave us bored: “The vacancy left by absence of worship is filled by mere killing of time and by boredom, which is directly related to inability to enjoy leisure; for one can only be bored if the spiritual power to be leisurely has been lost.”
If our vacations help us be once again awed at the gift of life, our friendships, and our relationship with God, they will truly unleash a spiritual power which will enrich our whole lives, not just help us get back to work.
— Reflections appears regularly on the religion page. The column features a variety of local writers, coordinated through the Monroe Area Clergy Group. Fr. Dave Carrano is the new Parochial Administrator of St. Clare of Assisi Parish (Monroe and Brodhead), St. Francis Parish (Belleville and Albany), and St. Joseph Church (Argyle), working as part of a team of three priests who began their ministry here on July 1, 2023.
