LEISURE, A BLESSING OR A CURSE?

Mark 8:36 

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forget his soul?

As Christians we certainly have a moral obligation to use well the gift of life, a gift that has been almost doubled in the last 100 years.  A century ago, the average working man spent 70 hours a week on the job and lived only 40 years.  Now he averages 40, or a few more, hours a week and lives well past 70.  That’s 1500, more or less, free hours a year for a total of some 33,000 additional free hours in a lifetime.  That’s a lot of boredom, or excitement, or something in between as each of us decides what to do with all this added abundance.     

       Leisure time?  Leisure time is for swapping stories around a campfire, for holding the hand of one we love, for children and parents getting to know each other better.  It is the season for listening, for giving a sympathetic ear to a stranger or a friend.  Leisure is the season for giving.  It feeds time with a smile because we have not wasted the muscles of opportunity.

       Leisure is the time for forgiveness.  Forgiveness isn’t easy and when we are weary it is even more difficult for then we are more easily angered, less likely to even try to understand.  Leisure gives us the chance to bounce back emotionally, physically, spiritually.

       Leisure is a time for getting to know yourself.  Ask me who in my life has given me the most trouble and I must admit, “Me, when I let myself get too tired and out of sorts.”  

If when leisure comes you find you cannot relax because you’re too busy…then you are right, you are too busy.  A president of a large New York City firm leaves his office at odd hours during the day and walks through nearby Central Park for awhile.

 He explains, “I’m running my firm.  It’s not running me.”  Another successful executive, weary with some of his colleagues who did nothing but complain how tired they were, put it well when he said, “I feel like shouting at them, ‘You dummies.    You mean to tell me you can take responsibility for millions of dollars of business and yet you can not control you own schedule enough to find any time for a little fun?’ ”

       William Muldoon, the famous athletic trainer of yesteryear, once said, “Men do not die of disease.  Rather they die of internal combustion.”