Vacation time! What eager hopes and happy memories these words kindle—laughter and gladness, solitude and quietude, freedom and refreshment! In joyous anticipation one exclaims, "I'm going on a vacation soon!" A bit regretfully another says, "Mine is past!" And resignedly the pressed and harried businessman says, "I haven't had a vacation in years."

Vacation! Holiday! Let's think for a minute what those words mean. A dictionary definition of "vacation" is "time free (for something else); specifically, time for contemplation." "Contemplation" is described as "meditation on spiritual things," and the word holiday is literally a combination of "holy" and "day." How profitable and far-reaching would all vacations be if they were generally regarded as time free for meditation on spiritual things, the holy day of Spirit!

Vacation usually suggests the thought of going somewhere, of fresh scenes, wide horizons, new friends, restful relaxation, and joyous activity. All too often, though, the good one seems to derive is fleeting, and very presently the old trouble, the devastating exhaustion, the pressure, fears, and worry, all are back. In the words of Jeremiah, one might say (Jer. 8:15), "We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble!"

What is needed is a deep and fundamental healing. Paul gave the unfailing recipe for a real vacation when he said to the Corinthians (II Cor. 5:8), "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord"—willing to vacate or abandon corporeal sense and reflect, in spiritual contemplation, the presence and action of divine Mind.

We are contemplating something all the time, and that contemplation is either evidencing mortal mind's belief in its illusive sense of imperfection and mortality or divine Mind's consciousness of its own infinitude. Personal sense, with its limited, finite sense of all things, sees a finite person, a self separate from God, contemplating either the things of Spirit or the things of matter. Christian Science, however, lifts thought to the realm of Mind and shows divine Mind manifesting itself in conscious being, thus annihilating the beliefs of mortal existence.

Thus, in our meditation on the things of Spirit, a finite self with a warped and limited understanding, striving to discern the things of Spirit, disappears before the spontaneous unfoldment of divine Mind. Before the light of Mind, pride, self-will, personal antagonisms, hatred, fear, dishonesty, and all the distortions of sense fade from our experience, and our true individuality and selfhood as the image and likeness of God becomes more apparent.

What vistas of heaven are ours as the truth of being dawns upon our thinking! Every day the alert Christian Scientist, no matter how busy the day, sits down with the Bible and with "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" and the other writings of Mary Baker Eddy, and takes some time for spiritual contemplation. The glories which he beholds in that sacred period of daily study do not end with the closing of the books and the resuming of his human activities, but they illumine every task which lies before him and transform the drabness of human experience into the radiance of Spirit.

Here is the true vacation, a vacation we may all enjoy today! Real vacation, then, is never in the past, never in the far-off future, for contemplation of things spiritual is the divine prerogative of each and all every moment of every day. This vacation is not limited in time by human mandates, is not confined to human locality, nor dependent upon human companionship. It is marked by an inner spiritual satisfaction and by a sense of rest which destroys fatigue and enlarges the human capacity with spiritual endurance and limitless opportunity.

Christian Science exchanges the things of sense for ideas of Mind and translates man and the universe into their spiritual reality. Thus in her book entitled "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy writes (pp. 331, 332): "Midst the falling leaves of old-time faiths, above the frozen crust of creed and dogma, the divine Mind-force, filling all space and having all power, upheaves the earth. In sacred solitude divine Science evolved nature as thought, and thought as things. This supreme potential Principle reigns in the realm of the real, and is 'God with us,' the I am." And she continues, "As mortals awake from their dream of material sensation, this adorable, all-inclusive God, and all earth's hieroglyphics of Love, are understood; and infinite Mind is seen kindling the stars, rolling the worlds, reflecting all space and Life, —but not life in matter." What vistas of being are opened here, an endless unfoldment of beauty and glory transcending human view. Here are mountains of inspiration and valleys of meekness, wide vistas of heaven, and a fathomless sea of Love. The contemplation of this glory enfolds our experience in the broadening benediction of Soul. Here are no difficulties of transportation, no lack of accommodation, no jostling and pushing, no envyings or strife. This is that of which Christ Jesus invited us to avail ourselves when he tenderly said (Matt. 11:28), "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Christian Science is no blind optimism, no chimerical, impractical dream. It commands demonstration and demands it in the life of the student, even mighty overcoming of the human sense of egotism and a deep, triumphant Soul-searching purification of self. Mrs. Eddy describes this as the new birth, which she so beautifully expounds in an article bearing that title, beginning on page 15 of "Miscellaneous Writings."

In reply to a letter extending to her an invitation to attend the Chicago World's Fair, Mrs. Eddy wrote to her students (ibid., pp. 321, 322): "I have a world of wisdom and Love to contemplate, that concerns me, and you, infinitely beyond all earthly expositions or exhibitions. In return for your kindness, I earnestly invite you to its contemplation with me, and to preparation to behold it."

As we heed her invitation and devote thought increasingly to the contemplation of the things of Spirit, we shall bring their blessings increasingly into our experience; our day will be more joyous and our life more fruitful. No human problem, physical or otherwise, can come between us and the God-given happy vacation of continuous spiritual knowing and being. As we prove this, the vacation periods of human experience, reckoned by calendars and happy recreation, will be enriched with spiritual depth and fraught with meaning, bringing lasting enrichment and rest to tired humanity.

Let us begin our vacation today and make it the everlasting holy day of Spirit!

L. Ivimy Gwalter