Holidays too!

The recession has possibly hit holidays more than other aspects of life.  Destinations have to be curtailed, with Thailand becoming the Algarve, anywhere abroad giving way to a week on the Cornish Riviera, or perhaps you have to be content with a weekend in Skegness.  Wherever you go, one thing that is common to all holidays is luggage.

What’s a holiday for, anyway?  For some it’s a chance for adventure, attempting a hitherto unattained achievement; maybe it simply provides a change, and a rest from the routines that fill the remainder of the year.  Only the saddest suitcase fetish would see a holiday as an opportunity to take his rucksack for a ride . . . but even for him, a holiday will require luggage.

For many people a holiday will provide release from a tight timeframe.  There will be more time, so that things can be ‘done properly’, which reminds me . . . are you one of those people who get a few miles down the road and worry about what has been left out of their packing?  One thing I always try to remember is a good book, and then I can indulge myself, using some of that extra time to do some serious reading.

I recently acquired a copy of a new book, ‘Forgetful Heart’ by Lucy Mills.  I found that at the end of each chapter comes a selection of ideas or questions for meditation, and the invitation to employ a notebook or journal to record these, enabling the reader to link such thoughts to one another.  It’s a feature that is common to many publications, and I wondered how often such ideas or suggestions are ignored, for example when we come across them in our Bible notes.  It’s easy to think that they are there ‘for other people’, or ‘for people who have time for that sort of thing’.  I confess that, in defiance of James’s exhortation “be doers of the word and not hearers [or readers] only” (James 1:22), this is often my reaction.  However, I repeat, a holiday offers more time . . . so we can do things properly!

Is that thing that you’ve forgotten not something missing from the suitcase, but an arrangement for a friend to water your pot-plants?  If so, you could come home to find them flagging and drooping, or worse: dead!  I hope you remember to take your Bible and those regular Bible-reading notes with you on holiday.  Our faith is in need of constant nourishment, just like those pot-plants that we water regularly when we’re at home; but unless we make provision for this spiritual nourishment to continue when we’re away, our faith can meet the same fate as the plants.

Finally, while we’re thinking of both plants and the rich soil of our hearts, just look at the parable of the soil (often called the parable of the sower), where the final verse carries a real gem.  “... He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”  (Matt. 13:23b).  If our faith is going to produce a crop, it’s no use letting it flag and wither . . . holiday or not!