Vacation

Ready to escape?  The weather gets hotter, the kids get antsier, we get tireder—something has to
give.  

By definition, a vacation is a “getaway.”  It is a time of freedom, a time of intermission between
times of work, a holiday.  The Latin word it comes from means “to be empty,” and so it is the
source for “vacancy” as well as vacation.

It tells a lot about us today that our vacations are anything but vacant.  Lots of fine folks I know
are never busier than in the days and weeks they travel or exercise or sight-see on vacation.  
Many’s the time I’ve found friends and colleagues glad to get back to work so they could rest, so
frenetic was their “time off.”  Not that they told their bosses…or vestries.

You and I are so very privileged to live in the times and culture we do, when rest is a right, and
personal time and leisure are natural parts of the rhythm of our lives.  That is a wonderful thing,
and we do well to be thankful for it and not take it for granted.

Like letting farmland lie fallow for a season, the “sabbath” time of rest in the weeks of our lives
and in the seasons of our vacations serves a purpose beyond itself.  Fallow time renews the land,
preparing it for future fertility and productive growth.  To deny fallow time is to fall into folly.  
The freedom to rest is a freedom to relax the mind, body and spirit and to let it grow in other
ways that normal days of labor do not.

As these days of summer pass—and I hope you get a good and renewing time of rest and
relaxation in them—let your vacation rest be a sabbath.   Renew your heart and mind with
something that lifts your imagination and your understanding—whether from your reading, or
your praying, or your listening to greatness in music or verse, or viewing great beauty in travel
and the wonders of nature.  (The view of a sunset or sunset out your back door will do very well
for that; you don’t have to go far.)

So while we rest, and when we return,  all our time is an opportunity for celebration.  The giver
of our work is the giver of our rest, and both rest and work give glory back to the one who has
made it all.  That will fill our days, and eternity.

                                             In Christ,
                                                                          
                                             Frank  Fuller+
Rectitudes~~~
Thoughts for July, 2008