Article June 11, 1927 Issue

Vacation Time

MARY E. BELCHER

What a joyous vision the word "vacation" may conjure up to those toiling in the heated cities of the world, in crowded stores, in noisy workshops, in musty offices! What plans are made for long walks and lazy mornings, spent in listening to the cool lapping of the waves on the seashore; what eager discussions as to the best place in which to spend the precious leisure! Then, how often, disappointment seems to come instead of joy! So many things arise to interfere with the peaceful time that we intended to spend, and we return home with a sense of failure, a sense of having missed something; and we attribute this to the weather, to people with whom we came in contact, or, perhaps, to having made an unwise choice as to location.

May it not be that the failure to realize our joyous anticipation lies in the fact that the real meaning of a true vacation has not been understood; that we have been looking to matter instead of Spirit for refreshment; that we have been looking for merely physical recreation, and have not been seeking "first the kingdom of God," which alone can bring to us the true sense of joy and satisfaction?

Too often in planning a holiday we unconsciously look upon it as an opportunity to let down a little in our endeavor to gain spiritual good, with the result that we are not as alert as good soldiers should be to repulse temptation, and the inevitable consequence is a sense of disillusionment and disappointment. The only true rest and refreshment mankind can ever know is in spiritual communion with God. Our Master knew this when he went to the mountain alone, in order that he might listen more closely to the voice of God. He opened his thought during those quiet hours to the great truths of Being, in order that he might convey to a suffering and sinning world the great message of God's love and forgiveness. He knew that the only change or relazation needed was to learn more of God and of man as created in His image and likeness.

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