Minute Vacations

MEDITATION

OVER these last few months we’ve looked at some of the windows which allow us an insight into the eternal. In our lives of such busyness and haste the idea has been to slow us down just enough to catch a glimpse of God. Holy silence, holy listening, holy word and holy places have been invoked as accessories belonging to that spiritual toolkit which is so necessary for our journey of faith.

Now it’s time for a holiday! The origin of the word holiday is in an Old English word hāligdæg meaning “holy day” or “consecrated day”. Such days were days of religious festival and they carried with them an exemption from work and permission for festivity. For most of us the idea of a holiday is our next trip to foreign shores, a weekend getaway or a day offwork to catch up with life. That is the modern meaning of “holiday”, but let’s go back in time and explore the possibilities that can explode into life when we make use of the opportunities for spiritual growth that exist in the special moments of special days.

Today’s world seems as if it has been plugged in and left running, systems that we depend on and embedded patterns of life mean that for many people Sunday, the Lord’s Day, the Sabbath or whatever we call it - cannot be the only holy day of the week. People who live today’s non-stop life need to find other ways of feeding their faith and recharging their spiritual batteries. People have to find new ways of building rest and recreation into their timetable.

One way is to use the Christian Year and stop offat some of the holy days: Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and on into Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and so on. There are the holy days that nearly everyone knows about and there are others which, in our protestant tradition we hardly dare mention. People will argue that some of these holy days should be downplayed because they have their origins in pagan festivals; everyday is a Saint’s day, but for some these are taboo because they are tantamount to idolatry.

The Reformation may have acted as a corrective influence on the medieval church, but with it there was an excess of negativity and, in some cases, the baby was thrown out with the bathwater. This is true of the way in which the holy days have been regarded and I am simply making the case for using these as another window on God’s goodness and as another tool for sharpening our spiritual awareness.

Many years ago I came across a prayer, which has travelled with me throughout the years. It was written by Wilfred Peterson, it begins with the words: ‘Slow me down Lord, ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind’ and later in the petition it asks that we learn: ‘the art of taking MINUTE vacations, of slowing down to look at a flower, to chat with a friend, to pat a dog, to read a few lines of a good book’. I like that idea of MINUTE vacations – taking, in the true sense of the word, a holiday in the midst of the busyness of everyday. One way of doing that is to pay a little more attention to the lives, the memories, the anniversaries and the stories that are associated with the diff erent days of our year and the diff erent seasons of the Christian Year.

”There are the holy days that nearly everyone knows about and there are others which, in our protestant tradition we hardly dare mention.

That giant of American literature Henry Longfellow once said: “The holiest of holidays are those kept by ourselves in silence and apart; the secret anniversaries of the heart.”

Don’t wait for Sunday if today you can enjoy a minute vacation. Don’t leave your holiday arrangements with a travel agent – arrange some holy days or some holy moments for yourself and for the good of your inner life.

This article appears in the May 2018 Issue of Life and Work

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