Jason Clark » Leisure Sickness
Dutch psychologists Ad Vingerhoets and Maaike van Huijgevoort, coined the phrase ‘Leisure Sickness’ in 2001, when they undertook a study of how people developed symptoms of ill health during weekends and holidays. The phrase has been developing and seems to be being used by psychologists to talk about an increasing prevalence of people feeling ill, run down, tired and ill during their leisure time.
Seems that in a world of both people in a relationship having to work due to economic pressure, the weekends become about cramming shopping and DIY, and then a quest for relaxation that involves us consuming and traveling to rest, and yet we are more tired than ever. Our leisure pursuits are making us sick.
Psychologists are prescribing people to take real time for themselves, instead of the pseudo time invested in shopping and consuming.
Reading about this reminded me of the piece I wrote on Theocapitalism. The religion of our culture demands it’s worshippers to tithe and worship at it’s altar every weekend.
All this reminded me of the place for our churches to provide spaces to give a very different rhythm to the week. To take stock of our lives, assess who we are and our connection to the world and others, to find space to be open to the sacred, and pour ourselves out, rather than consume. And then we might find real leisure, real recreation, that takes us in health into our weeks.
I am reminded of the Bible class I taught on vocation. We (or I) went off on a tangental exposition on the fourth commandment… All agreed that the Sabbath wasn’t man setting aside a day for God but God giving man a day of rest and worship. This is a gift which is too often neglected. Last weekend we got a dog, ran a pile of errands, drove to a reception in Wabash, and drove to the other side of the state for my niece’s baptism. Of all this, very little time was available to truly rest. I’m still feeling the effects (along with teaching our puppy Maggie to rest when we rest.)
So both aspects of the gift of Sabbath are neglected. We don’t rest and we don’t worship regularly as a culture. Without the rhythm of the Sabbath we suffer.
(BTW: Jason’s Theocapitalism post is also quite good… It has often been said over my time at the seminary that the primary pastoral concern for us is not going to be drug abuse, sexual abuse, marital issues, family issues…. no, the primary concern will be rampant consumerism. From my own experience, I have to agree.)
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