faith and work on Leisure

The end of labor is to gain leisure.

The huge assumption of our social context is that work is bad and leisure is good. Our only hope for a transformed vision for vocation, work and career, and for navigating the transitions of life, is ...

Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness.

O God, in the course of this busy life, give us times of refreshment and peace; and grant that we may so use our leisure to rebuild our bodies and renew our minds, that our spirits may be opened to th...

The American Golfer George Archer had a relatively successful career on the PGA tour, winning thirteen PGA tournaments, including the 1969 Masters. As he drew closer to retiring from the sport, he was...

The other afternoon, in an effort to avoid doing my work, I picked up Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. It turned out to be a fitting choice, as Thoreau has quite a bit to say about wasting time. “The cos...

Work is so foundational to our makeup that it is one of the few things we can take in significant doses without harm. Indeed, the Bible does not say we should work one day and rest six or that work an...

Work is a blessing. God has so arranged the world that work is necessary, and He gives us hands and strength to do it. The enjoyment of leisure would be nothing if we had only leisure. It is the joy o...

It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Thus, an elderly lady of leisure can spend the entire day in writing and dispatching a postcard t...

I just want to lie on the beach and eat hot dogs. That's all I've ever wanted.

People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To b...

Rest has never been one of America’s greatest strengths. According to one study, only one in seven adults (14%) have set aside an entire day for the purpose of rest. For those who do set aside an enti...

The green oasis, the little grassy meadow in the wilderness, where, after the week-day’s journey, the pilgrim halts for refreshment and repose.

...work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental...

The is an invitation to enter delight. The , when experienced as God intended, is the best day of our lives. Without question or thought, it is the best day of the week. It is the day we anticipate on...

Sabbath is that uncluttered time and space in which we can distance ourselves from our own activities enough to see what God is doing.

Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives. This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle...It interrupts my dreams. There is no Sabbath.

In contrast (and contradiction) to cultural mindlessness (that can hardly be underestimated!): The Sabbath and its observance may cultivate a theological mindfulness. . . . How so? The Sabbath sanctif...

The antidote to exhaustion is not rest but wholeheartedness.

In his book Thrive in Retirement, Eric Thurman shares the story of close friends preparing for their golden years: My husband was a lawyer who joked that after “the big case” came across his desk, h...

Because of the modern rhythms of work that are mediated through personal computers and phones, people, in the words of one cultural commentator, “leave the office, but they do not leave their work. Th...

The discussion of the sabbath leads to an interesting reflection. Some of our economies and cultures actually are put together in such a way that the poor either struggle to get enough work or have no...

Living 24/6 feels like magic and here’s why: it seems to defy the laws of physics, as it both slows down time and gives us more of it. I laugh a lot more on that day without screens. I notice everythi...

I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in ...

True rest seems elusive for most Americans. Only one in seven adults (14%) set aside a day a week for rest. And on that one day a week, what do they do? Mostly, they work. More than four in ten say th...

Gracious God, in six days you created all things. On the seventh day you finished your work by resting. You also blessed and hallowed the seventh day, setting it aside as a day of rest. Teach me, Lord...

Don’t underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.

In the midst of your striving Your labor Your responsibilities Your hustle Hear the invitation, “Come to the Feast!” Come, eat and drink Come, rest and rejoice Come, dance in the presence of our Gene...

A being is free only when it can determine and limit its activity.

Ron Roheiser points out three images for retreat used in Scripture that meet us in our yearning; all of them apply in different ways at different times.  ● There is the lonely place to which Jesus ...