Article July 28, 1951 Issue

A PROFITABLE VACATION

FRANKIE L. THOMAS

A Young mother of small, active children one hot summer felt keenly the burden of her never-ending responsibilities. The children were discordant among; themselves, and on her part patience seemed to be lacking. Her almost constant wish was that she could get away for just a few days, but a vacation was not possible.

One evening, after a most trying day, she realized that she had been lured into the sophistry of believing that moving the human body to some other locality would solve the problem. Even if it should be possible for her to have a few days for vacation or rest, when she returned she would have the same devastating pressure, fears, and worries. She realized that what was needed was a deep and fundamental understanding of true rest. She knew that rest is not to be found in the absence of thinking, but in active recognition of the one harmonious, all-inclusive presence, God.

Dictionaries inform us that a holiday was originally what the word indicates, a holy day; and one definition of "vacation" is "time free (for something else); specifically, time for contemplation." Unquestionably her need was to spend more time in contemplation, or meditation, on spiritual things, thereby making each day a holiday, or holy day. Paul gave the unfailing recipe for a most satisfying and far-reaching vacation when he said in his second epistle to the (Corinthians (5:8), "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."

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