It was just 24 hours away from home, resting at the cottage of a friend, but it's left it's mark on the color of summer. What is there about getting to new scenery, new location that feels so good for our system ?

It's about freedom and regaining our sense of choice, advises the Canadian Stress Institute. After helping 300 of the world's leading employers reduce stress among their ranks, the Institute's director, Dr. Richard Earle, says vacation is about cutting the leash, or myriad of leashes that restrict our choice.  Sleep in, drive away, do nothing, the options for cutting the leash are endless. Vacations and the freedom they represent bring about the kind of discussion that can leave everyone wanting.  You either can't afford it, can't agree on it, can't manage the time away .... before you know it, you've whined your way back to work.

Dr. Earle's advice; focus on what brings you satisfaction and you've begun the road to a vacation.  In his esteemed opinion, even the lowest of budget, or  busiest of professions should be able to negotiate a holiday by analyzing what is it that gives you that satisfaction.  Once that's determined, make those ingredients happen - even if only for a day, an evening, and you're bound to emerge from the choice you've made, as a rested and satisfied person.

But it's not just the Canadian Stress Institute that's telling you to reach for freedom from work demands.  The first and original owner's manual for how to run human life has the requirement for rest in it's top ten.  The ten commandments of the Bible outline the need for Sabbath, roughly translated meaning, "soul breath". One day out of seven we are told to say "enough" and to simply stop our work for a revival of who we are.  I'm one who thinks this requires trust and dependence on unseen wisdom.  Can you really let go and slide into a divine principle ?

How times have changed on how we observe this pause.  In Numbers 15 you'll find the account of the worker who was the first to ignore the command to rest.  The story is recorded of a man who simply went out to gather wood on a Sabbath.  Arrested and held in custody, the community waited for an answer from God on what to do with the Sabbath worker.  When God spoke, the answer was harsh. Death by stoning was to be the penalty for such high handed rebellion as ignoring the holiness of a day of rest.

In my world, resting is an ethical issue.  It's an activity to be obeyed because it's a spiritual command.  And what delightful orders these are, direction that reflects God's loving heart for the people of His planet.

Into the very fabric of nature God has created a cycle of rest, into the very nature of who I am as a person, God created the rhythm of rest.

In addition to weekly Sabbath or soul breath, the Bible directed  it's people to take 20 days off a year for times of feast and festival.  May be that's why your yearning for vacation keeps resurfacing, it's a good gift designed into the very nature of who we are.

Ignore it at your peril, live it for your delight. Wishing you happy holidays, if even just for a day.