Olive Crest United Methodist Church
7180 North 60th Street
Omaha, Nebraska 68152

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Rev. Debra Tompsett-Welch

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The Spiritual Life

July 2001

Going on Vacation For God

By Rev. Michael Lee Burgess

I looked out at the gathered people of God last Sunday and realized that Vacation Season is here. (The congregation looked like it had been on a diet, it was a little thin.). Now I have no problems with vacations, in fact I think God invented them. We were designed to work best if we have times of work broken up with periods of rest and renewal. One of the reasons God asked us to observe the Sabbath was to make sure we rested and the whole of the world with us (including our working animals in farming). I remember when we were packing for a family vacation when I was young. We got out our dog Easy J's black gym bag that held all his dog stuff. When he figured out that he was going with us he ran off and got his orange ball and put it in his suitcase so we wouldn't forget it. (So some animals love vacations too)

So taking vacations as a time for renewal is important. Especially since some things need different kinds of rest to be refreshed and brought up to balanced efficiency and good working order. But the real question is, "Do we take the right kind of vacation and what are we trying to renew by our vacation?" I was interviewing people about why they went on vacations. One of my people, "Jack", (the names have been changed to protect the guilty, and because I forgot to ask their permission to quote them) said he went on vacations to get away from the background worries. He said that your mind is always thinking about problems and you get tired struggling with the same stuff week after week. You go on a vacation and you think about different problems, your mind is on different things and you come back refreshed to think about your old problems.

He has a point, but why do we have to wait for a once a year vacation to give our minds permission to rest and refocus? Jesus regularly went away to pray with God and let his spirit and mind be in a different place so that he could come back renewed. Do you have to dramatically change your environment to give yourself permission to refocus for a while? It is true that it is often easier to refocus walking among the mountains and that lets down the barrier of back ground noise that keeps us from feeling God near us. On a family vacation to Yellowstone National Park mom remembers how I leaned out of the window of the car to take a snap shot of a double rainbow that was just beautiful. Even when we are young we can see the shadow of God moving across the face of the earth.

But we don't have change our outside environment to change our inside one. That just takes time, focus and a small change. Sometimes all it takes is a different room or sitting on a lawn chair in the backyard or going to the zoo or museum or coming down to the church, not for a meeting, but just to visit God. Can we not remember to give ourselves permission to step away for a moment in our daily lives? Can't we schedule an hour or two to be apart and look at beauty, listen for love and reach out to touch the hand of God in the world around us? That is part of what Sabbath rest is all about. We take Vacations very seriously and spend time and money on them; can we not do that at least once a month (week) for our heart, mind and soul's sake? Week long vacations are often a year apart; we need rest in-between as well.

Another kind of vacation is the go go go kind, where we do something we love with enthusiasm. In this kind of vacation we probably will not come back physically rested. During that vacation where we went to Yellowstone, everyone was so tired when we got home that when dad put the car in reverse to back into the drive way the gear shift lever fell off in his hand. Even the car was exhausted. But doing something different we love to do can also be very renewing and refreshing even if not physically restful. In my life emotional exhaustion has always been harder to deal with than physical tiredness. If my emotional/mental life is balanced I can deal with my body being mad.

So why does this kind of vacation renew? We live in a world that is compartmentalized itself into tiny slices of a human being. We are limited in our expression of ourselves by our work environment, our family roles and social settings. If you start using crayons at work your boss is going to wonder. But all of us have the playful small child within us that needs to express itself. If you find a time in which you can responsibly play at something you love just for the joy of it, then God is sharing in your joy in life. We forget that God is our constant companion in everything we do, in both the times of joy and pain. We remember to ask God for help when it hurts, but God is also there when we laugh.

This is something that happens when I go to Denver to the Mile Hi Science Fiction convention. I still give a sermon on Sunday and serve communion to the convention goers; but even in that moment of work and some counseling moments, I am playing all the time I am there. I don't have to go until I am exhausted before I stop watching everything I say. I just blurt out all sorts of crazy things; I play board games and get into political discussions. I get lots of hugs and sometimes I even flirt with some old friends. Then when I get back and recover from the sleep deprivation, I find that my joy of being here with my church family is much brighter. The small things that can annoy or make it hard for me to hear what the person "meant" to say are all much less important. So I am renewed to serve God with greater grace.

So once again, why do we have to wait until a once a year time to play with enthusiasm and be renewed? What damage would it cause if we let our inner child play for an hour or so every week? And remember there is an important difference between doing the kinds of adult play we do when trying to impress those around us and the unselfconscious play of the child let go to find wonder in the world. You have to reflect and think about what you did when you played and look at its effect on you and inner self/soul. Are you balanced, lighter and more open afterwards or tense and frustrated trying to win? The goal is renewal, not winning. Renewal so that our lives are more beautiful gifts to God and ourselves and those we love around us.

When we chose to live in the grace of God, we must give ourselves permission to live the abundant life of joy for no other reason than because God loves our joy. Let us work together to remember to share "vacation" time with each other this summer and offer each other renewal.

God Bless you, keep you safe if you travel and bring you home enriched to share with all our family your renewed sense of self and joy.

Your brother-in-Christ, Reverend Michael Lee Burgess

p.s. Dad told me this just as I was sitting down to start typing: "Remember the preacher who told his next door neighbor, 'Listening to preaching is just like mowing your lawn, you have to do it every week.' Well when Monday came the preacher was out mowing his lawn and his next door neighbor leaned over the fence and said 'That's right preacher, keep it short, keep it short.'"

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