A Holy Vacation

A Forbes article in May 2018 entitled “Why America Has Become the No-Vacation Nation,” said that  47% of us did not take all of our vacation in 2017, and 21% of us “left more than five vacation days on the table.”  The article concluded that, as a nation, we are becoming “vacation-phobic.”*

I am about to go on my summer break.  Apparently, I am an outlier in this American trend towards vacation phobia, because I plan to take all the vacation I am allotted before year’s end.  And I do so, not just because my contract gives me this benefit, but for what I hope is a “holy” reason.  I need a break to break myself of an unholy attitude.

The life-giving Commandments that God gave our ancestors on Mt. Sinai call for a weekly sabbath, a time of rest, re-creation, and breathing deeply into the holy wisdom of “letting go and letting God.”  The older I get, the clearer it becomes to me that I need such a weekly sabbath, as well as the longer sabbath of vacation, because I am in the grip of an overweening attachment – even addiction – to work.  Although I try to soften my attachment by reframing it as a “desire to be useful,” the fact remains that I have become trapped in an unholy pattern of living that does violence** to who I really am.  I keep defining my worth in terms of work and my accomplishments.  Practicing sabbath – whether weekly or in the more extended rest of vacation – reminds me that I am valuable not because I do, but simply because I am – made in the image and likeness of the God whose Name is “I AM.”

During my upcoming vacation, I want to attempt one very particular pathway into sabbath, a holy detachment from the illusion that I matter because I am busy “doing.”  Between 9 and 5 every day, I will put away my cell phone, in the hope that I can let go of the many ways I try to prove to myself, to others, and to God that I am worthwhile because I am staying connected to others and their needs through Facebook, emails, and texts. 

I am under no illusion that this will be easy, given that I look at my cell phone several times each hour. But my prayer will be: “God, help me to trust that You can take care of things better than I can during these 8 hours.”  Perhaps you will pray that with me?  Who knows, perhaps if you do, you will find yourself wanting to try out some form of sabbath on your vacation – for your own good, and the glory of the God who made you to be, and not just to do.

Peace and blessings in Christ,

The Rev. William W. Rich

Vicar

       

*Victor Lipman, Forbes, May 21, 2018

**Thomas Merton, the wise, social activist Trappist monk of the 20th century, said that perhaps the most pervasive form of violence in our day is “activism and overwork.”