Vacations: Autumn Arrangement
For over a decade I worked with a volunteer organization which had, at its height, over forty members. I knew them well enough to notice a pattern in many of my friends. Again and again I knew that one of of them was working intensely for weeks or months. Then the demands would relax; sometimes the friend was able to take a vacation. And then I would observe in my friend a spurt of growth. He or she would be more real, more integrated, more beautiful, more advanced in practical spirituality.
This is a pattern that can come alive every day, every week. We get up and plunge into activity. Then we relax, rest, take a nap, play, break for a meal, stimulate our minds with something new, socialize, or worship. And then the cycle begins anew. Along the way, if we are making wholehearted decisions for the new frontiers of the divine way of living, we will enjoy the accumulation of tiny increments of unconscious growth.
I remember hearing a brilliantly clear talk forty years ago, at the Chabod House in Berkeley, California, given by a Jewish teacher named Chaim. He spoke about the meaning of Shabbat, the Sabbath. Some people work every day, trying to get ahead. But taking Sabbath rest from work is a way stating that, above all, we trust God for our sustenance.
Vacations, including a weekly spiritual vacation, are essential to balanced living. A good vacation refreshes our health, sanity, and happiness.
The semester schedule in school enables growth if persons take advantage of the potentials of its rhythm. Study is part of the process of growth. The intellect needs to expand to discover new facts, meanings, and values.
Some people are too busy to grow. They may be full of idealistic ambition but psychologically driven into levels of activism that do not allow the time for artistic living, balanced living. Thus, they lack the depth of calm that would add a cosmic dimension to their effectiveness. We can be busy accomplishing tasks, whether they are material tasks or religious religious tasks, and lack the higher leverage of the spiritual quality of action that touches the soul.
When we find ourselves overcommitted to many projects, it may be because we are undercommitted to the will of God. But there is a way out, which I call survival plus. When these times come, we let go of any commitments from which we can responsibly withdraw; in the tasks that we still recognize as our duty, we let go of perfectionism, excessive care for trivial details. We stand tall in profound self-respect, not making ourselves slaves to the person or institution making the demands upon us. In particular, we do not compromise our health, but maintain reasonable habits of nutrition, rest, and exercise. And we finish strong, not falling across the finish line and collapsing, but with arms raised in triumph. And finally, when the level of demand lessens, or when we can take a vacation, we make plans to avoid getting needlessly trapped in anything similar again.
The primary function of a vacation is to change our focus away from the monotonous grind of daily existence. We engage in different activities, taking up old hobbies or learning something new. A vacation can give us the chance to look back, reflect, and savor our accomplishments. A vacation can also provide time to look forward, re-conceptualize, and make some decisions regarding the season to come.
I experience a vacation-like phenomenon every month in our home, when I am blessed with an artistic contribution to our dining room by my wife Hagiko Wattles, gifted and accomplished in ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement. Her most recent arrangement, characteristically, has some reference to the season, now autumn. The radiant warmth of a bright yellow flower contrasts with the cool purple-and-green of two branches from the backyard liliac tree, one branch showing autumn fullness with many leaves, while the other expresses autumn sparseness, with just a few leaves, as winter comes on. Every season is transitional, and getting ready for winters of any kind is part of the wisdom of autumn. Let us prepare for whatever winter we may have ahead as we look for the springtime of a spiritual renaissance.
Vacations are part of that dimension of life that I call walking in beauty. Research indicates that we typically go back to work after a vacation and in three weeks it is as though we have never had a vacation at all. But a true vacation should introduce us to new ways of living that we can turn into habits so that we abide ever more joyously in the divinely beautiful dimension of life that is always there if we sincerely, wholeheartedly, and persistently seek it.
Want to hear the podcast? http://universalfamily.libsyn.com/vacations
When we submit ourselves totally to and in the Will of God, we know it, we feel it, we sense it, we do it. The Holy Spirit always sends graces to those who trust in God. It is the humility of Our Blessed Virgin Mary and our total trust in God that enables us to be free. Our Heavenly Father is so Humble and Divine, as we see in the life of Jesus, The Father’s Only Begotten Son. Humility is of the utmost importance in following the Will of God, without humility, we are void.
Hagiko’s flowers remind us that change is always with us in life. Stagnation, or the inability to change with all the daily new occurrences leaves us with total lack, then, we are unable to hear or do the will of God.
Each day is a precious gift open to many good new happenings. Our connection to our loved ones — husband/ wife, family members, and dear friends should remain the same, for perfection is only of God, forgiveness and understanding of all people we encounter is the “Key to the Heart of God.” Our openness to listen, hear, and understand each other makes us grow , for the human heart can grow in love, for the human heart is capable of loving more, and more people that we meet. I know that sometimes, it is very difficult to listen to some people, but we must be open to do so. Jesus asks us to love one and other as the Father loves us. Our being imperfect can make it very, very, very hard to like some other people. We must pray for these people to become whole. Our Heavenly Father is love and he loves all of His children in an unfathomable way.
Our free will, when not in accordance with the Father’s Will is sin, The Holy Spirit will abruptly let us know.
When we are kind, we have a freedom that almost leaves us breathless, but we still breathe, for while we live on earth, The Holy Spirit gives us life. In this way, we can have a little vacation in each day we are alive!
Paula, thanks for participating with this blogpost and for contributing to this site. You frankly acknowledge the difficulties of the spiritual life, learning to love people who are hard to love, and abundantly expressing all that gives momentum to the spiritual life. I’ve been thinking about your comment for a couple days. It helps me think of what to write about later on.
What is driving us to ignore the value of a true vacation? What is causing us to be so concerned with the quantity of life to the detriment of the quality of life? In all areas of life we see this relentless drive for quantity to the detriment of quality.
There should be a balance in life between quantity and quality. It is this imbalance between the material and the spiritual that creates so much dissatisfaction with life. hopefully more and more people will heed your invitation to step back and take a “deep breath of quality.”
Dr. Perry
Thanks again, partner.