Come, buy wine and milk, without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy? (Isaiah 55: 2)
These words from Isaiah, the prophet of hope, are both an invitation and a challenge. The surge in activities since the lifting of COVID restrictions in our country have been marked both by our Mediterranean zest for life, the outdoors, festivities and coming together, and an equally impressive uptake in the need to travel beyond our small isles. It has been the time for wings, after months of hunkering down in fear, isolation and distancing. Now, at the zenith of summer, it is time to take stock and ask some sober questions.
Has our rest been truly restful? Have our holidays truly replenished us? Is the money we spend on leisure truly giving us what we need?
People who flew out of the islands once a year now have two, three, or more overseas vacations pencilled in in a few crammed months. Coffee and dinner dates, barbecues and family reunions, weddings and festas are now embarked on in earnest and with urgency to make up for lost time. We eat, drink, celebrate, travel and meet. However, Isaiah’s gentle beckoning summons us again: why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy?
What is truly restorative in our lives? I have seen many people truly get value out of time off from work, or real holidays where they rest in nature, art and beauty.
Others come back replenished by spending time away from the humdrum, noise, dust and pigeonholes of our daily existence. However, many others, in the words of the prophet, spend money and come back more stressed, more exhausted, more disintegrated. Add inflationary pressures to this, and we are beginning to realise money cannot buy the most precious things in life. We fly and sail to far-off lands and forget the sunsets 10 minutes away. We explore sanctuaries and pilgrimage sites and never undertake the inner journey of growth, where our souls find their peace.
The more elaborate, exotic and intricate our holiday plans, the less likely they are to renew us internally. We spend more time googling the next corner than actually looking at what’s in the street we are walking in! In this, too, less is more.
The more elaborate, exotic and intricate our holiday plans, the less likely they are to renew us internally
As August reluctantly yields to September, many will be gripped by a particular angst and panic: summer has passed by way too quickly, and we still feel anxious, tired and fragmented. We may have met many friends socially but connected very little on a meaningful level. Here, Isaiah’s words, come to us again:
Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. (Isaiah 55 v. 6)
What is the deeper meaning of our quest for rest, ‘re-creation’, restoration and holidays? Maybe in the next few weeks the extreme pendulum swing from quarantine to gregariousness, from social distance to socially flooded, is to find a relative balance. A balance in which the invitation to worship, to listen to God’s whisperings, and to journey in faith and community play a part in making our journey more wholesome.