Family Spirituality

Recreation: Have more of less

In an article on restoration and rest in Weavings, Wendy Wright reflects on how different time can seem depending on how we use it. "Too often our recreation time is as frantic, competitive, and unrestorative as our labor." She describes true leisure as "a space where feckless time does not slip away but spreads itself in oceanic splendor." Ahhh.

Let yourself go oceanic this summer. Whether you have an extended time off, long weekends, or just some extra hours of sunlight at the end of the day, make the most of it by making less of it. Here are some suggestions to get you started:

• Plant a window box full of flowers.

• Blow bubbles.

• Take a bus ride to a part of town you seldom visit. Get off and explore, then take the bus back home with new eyes.

• Get out the encyclopedia and have your kids and their friends search out the "goofiest true fact" they can find.

• Plan a 15 minute visit to someone in the hospital or nursing home. Bring flowers.

• Play freeze tag with your kids.

• Tell stories about when you were a kid. Ask your kids to tell their favorite story "from when they were little."

• Declare one day "absolutely no work day." Don’t even make the beds (unless that would put you over the edge), and try to accept the gift of time God keeps giving you moment by moment.

• Make a sand castle.

• Find a good book and read a little bit aloud to your family each evening.

• Go get an ice cream cone together. Make sure to taste every last bit of it.

• Sit on the front porch and talk to your neighbors. TJM

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