Article August 5, 1996 Issue

"Fresh opportunities every hour"

Constance L. Pierce

Vacation. Is it worth it? Even if I feel overworked, can I afford to take time off? Those questions aren't just for workaholics with priorities out of balance, finding family or community last on the "to do" list.

After many years of putting up with having to take a vacation, I decided I needed a new view. Instead of looking at this time as an imposition, requiring just more work and planning, I found a way to look at it with anticipation and joy. The answer for me came in these words from the sermon Christian Healing by Mary Baker Eddy. She says of God, "Tireless Being, patient of man's procrastination, affords him fresh opportunities every hour; but if Science makes a more spiritual demand, bidding man go up higher, he is impatient perhaps, or doubts the feasibility of the demand" (p. 19).

So then, what is the spiritual demand when it comes to personal time? I saw I could look at this time as a wonderful opportunity to expand my concept of good. Not an escape from life, but another way to enrich and refresh one's experience through spiritual renewal. For instance, making time to refresh commitment to family, one's own and the world's, can bring the great reward of unselfed love. As Mrs. Eddy writes, "The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother's need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another's good" (Science and Health, p. 518). Such renewal leads down an unselfish and enriching path.

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