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The Backstroke As a Spiritual ExerciseEach year I make a five-day retreat and take a one week vacation. On retreat I meditate on scripture and wrap my mind around social justice readings. On vacation I swim in the ocean, nap in the afternoon and cook grouper at night. For retreat I usually go by myself to a retreat house or monastery, but for vacation nearly a dozen of us pool our resources for a week at the beach. Which seems more spiritual? A time of solitude for soul searching, or a time with friends filled with laughter and good food? Actually, a bogus question - both draw me closer to God and both renew my spirit. The American work ethic holds suspect any time off. Walking along the beach I occasionally hear a cell-phone conversation that obviously relates to work. Physically the person's beach chair sits a few yards from the lapping surf, but mentally he is walking through a marketing deal or personnel problem a thousand miles away. One study reports that over a third of workers called the office while on vacation. Americans get the least vacation time of workers in the industrialized world. They average 13 vacation days a year, whereas the Japanese enjoy 25 days and the Italians 42. In Sweden even a restaurant worker at McDonald's gets five weeks off. The main difference lies with our system. In most countries the government determines vacation days by law. In the U.S. employers negotiate vacations with the wage contract. The result: Americans work 350 hours more per year than Europeans. Pressure on the job also cuts into vacation plans. With outsourcing, plus the use of temporary and part-time workers, companies operate with a leaner workforce leaving more work for full-time employees who fear their jobs are going next. One study reports that 34 percent of those surveyed claim they have no down-time at work. About 32 percent eat lunch while working and the same number report never leaving the building after arriving for work. To stay connected and appear indispensable a current trend favors taking three- or four-day weekends rather than one- or two-week vacations. All this has implications for body and bucks. The work-till-you-drop ethic driven by guilt and fear can lead to worker burnout. Alan Muney, chief medical officer and executive vice president of Oxford Health Plans Inc., maintains vacations are not frivolous behavior: "Regular vacations are preventive medicine - they cut down on stress-related illness and save health care dollars." Yet, the overemphasis on work begs a different analysis from the church. The Exodus event occurred when the Hebrew slaves needed liberation from making bricks in the hot Egyptian sun. Work is intended to "make life more humane," according to Vatican II, not to further enslave. In contemporary society, workaholic behavior kills the warmth of relationships and misses the beauty of sunsets. For a dozen years the Catholic Committee of the South rented an enormous house at the beach and hosted low income folks and community workers for a week's vacation. Moms and small children got beds, others found couches and floor space. Some stayed a few days, others the full week. Everyone pitched in at mealtime. Even with limited resources folks created some vacation space. In the end those who lived ordinary and ho-hum lives felt the renewal from community and an inspiration to return home and make things better. As a balance to the exaggerated stress about work and life, doing the backstroke at the beach could be called a spiritual exercise.
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Catholic Conference of Kentucky 1042 Burlington Lane Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
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Last modified: November, 2008 |
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