When “Stay-At-Home” becomes “Holy Leisure”

It is Sunday morning—week number seven of our “Stay-At-Home” order from the State due to the 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic. My wife sits at the kitchen table working on a water-color painting for a family member, while I hunch over my laptop working on this essay.

We have slowly become accustomed to this new way of life. My wife joked the other day, greeting me with “Happy Groundhog Day–Again!” The days run on together, and we lose track of both the day of the week and the time. We have developed a daily routine that repeats itself over and over. We wonder with the rest of the nation what this will all mean over time, and if  there will be a “New Normal”.

I for one hope so. I hope we have learned some valuable lessons – and there are many, not least of which is how staying home is healing our globe. Water is cleaner, air is cleaner, and wildlife is flourishing.

I ask myself, and I ask you with me, if we will return to our former way of life once the Government lifts the mandated restrictions? Will my wife return to a life where she has no time or energy to do what she loves—painting for others?  Will I return to a life where I have little time to sit in my backyard and watch the wildlife and the clouds pass by, or pluck at the piano or banjo, or write a poem?  A time where I felt guilty for sitting in my backyard, gazing at a hummingbird drinking deeply from a ribbon of water shooting up from the fountain over the tiny pond? Or watching for a half hour a pair of ducks waddling around my lawn in blissful serenity? Ah, there with them should we all be.

Will we return to lives driven by the alluring sirens of commerce and ambition, or the simple fear of missing out? Will we return to rushing out our doors before dawn and returning in the evening only to spend it getting ready for the next day, with our only leisure staring in front of some screen?

Can it be that this time of “Stay-At-Home” has been a “Happy Accident”, acting as a mirror reflecting back at us what is missing in our lives—our deepest values and treasures?

Can it be this time is revealing to us what in our lives means the most?

I see hints that at least some of us are just now waking up to those elements of life that bring meaning and those that do not. The amount of discomfort and angst during this time of social distancing can serve as a finger pointing to what has been missing–to what really matters to each of us. Attention should be paid!

Stories are everywhere popping up about how this time has fostered re-connections between family and friends, and how households have learned to come together in helpfulness and in fun. I know I have connected more with family and friends than I have in recent months.

HOLY LEISURE

When we think about it, how do we typically spend our discretionary time? Do we fritter away our free time on TV or computer or video games, or watching sports (me in football season)?  In truth, we usually give away our times of “rest.” We absorb ourselves in screens of one sort or another – television, computer, smartphone, movie – and screens are barriers.

Their is an ancient spiritual concept called “Otium Sanctum,” Latin for “Holy Leisure.” Holy leisure is not about doing what we typically may do when we have free time on the weekends. Holy Leisure is the space and the time consecrated to become fully aware and to express through our actions our deepest longings that  our normal routines and the hectic nature of our lives do not allow.

Even to recognize what those deeper yearnings are requires an intentional space and time. That is the intrinsic value of spiritual retreats. The content of retreats is secondary to the space and time given to get in touch with your true self, who you really are, and who you want to become.It is what is underneath the concept of “Re-Creation”, where we use this consecrated time to reconnect to our hearts, drinking deeply from the well of “no distractions”, where we are nourished, created again, in our minds, in our souls, and in our bodies.

I am reminded of this poem by Wendell Berry;

Breathe with unconditional breath   

the unconditioned air.   

Shun electric wire.   

Communicate slowly. Live   

a three-dimensioned life;   

stay away from screens.   

Stay away from anything   

that obscures the place it is in.   

There are no unsacred places;   

there are only sacred places   

and desecrated places.     

The well we drink from will be different for different individuals. It may be reading what you choose rather than what you must or think you should. It may be practicing a lost skill or learning a new one—playing a musical instrument, singing, painting, writing poems, gardening and landscaping, or simply engaging in the lost art of “Day Dreaming” and “Pondering”.

All of these will nourish us, recreate us, and reconnect us to our Creator.

In the truest sense, “Holy Leisure”, while it is born of a consecration to some time and a place, becomes over time a general disposition towards living our lives as a result of our conscious effort to slow down and limit the external stimuli—the flashy objects, the latest trends, the new Netflix series.  It is like the admonishment to “Pray Always”—an admonishment to stay awake to the divine presence throughout our day.

To approach our lives with a “Holy Leisure” is to live as gently as we can, wearing this world as a loose garment. It is to live life with our eyes wide open to the dimensions beyond what allures us away from ourselves and prevents us from seeing what is really there. We cry out with the poets “Look, it is there—I have seen it!”.

So, when the “Stay-At-Home” order is lifted in the weeks or months to come, my hope and prayer for all of us is we do not return to the “Old Normal”. I pray we each reject the urge to “turn on the switch”, but rather, carefully and slowly turn the dial of our lives, allowing back in only those elements that nourish us, bring us joy, and allow us to recreate ourselves.

Let that be our “New Normal”

Stay well

Kind Regards,

Bob