I am needing some rest after an extended push of doing many tasks over the last seven months. So, I went looking for research to support my felt need for some R&R. (Did you know that there’s a whole journal dedicated to the cause of leisure? Yep, it’s the Journal of Leisure Research
; now, never mind that the National Recreation & Park Association publishes it, still it has the revered “journal” label!)
In an article THE NEGLECT OF RELAXATION (Journal of Leisure Research, 2000 1st Quarter, Vol. 32, Issue 1, p.82-86), Douglas A. Kleiber draws attention to polar views of leisure, contrasting a more “doing” way of leisure described as “rather high intensity activity as being a source of satisfaction, self-realization, and even a sense of community”; with a more “being” kind of “leisure found in an attitude of ‘non-activity’ and receptivity.” He goes on to quote an author of a ‘classic’ book on leisure: “Leisure is not the attitude of mind of those who actively intervene but of those who are open to everything; not of those who grab and grab hold, but of those who leave the reins loose and who are free and easy themselves." [(p.41) J. Pieper, Leisure: The basis of culture. New York: Random House, 1963, 1952]
Kleiber asserts
: “Committed and serious effort, joyous activity and celebration, and re-creation may emerge from leisure, but I share Pieper's view that leisure is most essentially a position of relaxation, of faithful openness to immediate reality and ease of movement and thinking… disengaged and relaxed, open to possibility, receptive to the world around and comforted by the conditions of our lives that allow us to be that way.” {Kleiber also notes that, “For Pieper, faith in God is needed for true leisure. Perhaps that is so. But I would argue that disengagement and emotional security would be enough to give leisure meaning and value in our time.”}
Additionally, the article’s discussion on pause gives me pause--
“In Freedom and Destiny, psychoanalyst Rollo May (1981) discusses the significance of the pause as a critical element of freedom and creativity. The pause, which is more relevant to eastern than western thought, signifies what is not rather than what is. The pause signifies appreciation and opportunity; it is time pregnant with possibility…. Pause is the prerequisite for wonder. When we don't pause, when we are perpetually hurrying from.., one "planned activity" to another, we sacrifice the richness of wonder (p. 167, Freedom and destiny. New York: W. W. Norton).
May notes that musicians are especially aware of the power of pauses in giving notes meaning and clarity… The pause takes advantage of the capacity to appreciate. In everyday thought reflection requires pausing; and yet pauses can last for longer, as in an evening, a weekend, a vacation or a sabbatical. But May also notes that the American sense of leisure does not make particularly good use of the pause--in some contrast to Europeans as well as people in non-western cultures--preferring to define the freedom of leisure i
n the action that can occur, in movement and becoming rather than in contemplation and being.”
Giving pause; being free and easy, relaxed, open; living in wonder, contemplation, and being – these all sound especially appealing to me today; maybe also to you?
May your summer hold ample opportunity to live leisurely – to give pause so that you might wonder, and enjoy being.
“In silence all of our usual patterns assault us… That is why most people give up rather quickly.” – Richard Rohr
I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother… - Psalm 131:2
Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him… Psalm 37:7
Now, O Lord,
calm me into a quietness
that heals
and listens,
and molds my longings
and passions,
my wounds
and wonderings
into a more holy
and human
shape.
- Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace
No comments:
Post a Comment