By the time you receive this e-mail, summer will be over.  It’s nose-to-the grindstone, with no long weekends or holidays for weeks to come.  Summer, American-style, officially ended yesterday.

But I’m writing my reflections from “Pay Jay’s,” a convenience store and café near Lake Gaston, off I-85 near the Virginia border.  Our son Phil’s wife has been coming here with her family since she was born.  After church on Sunday, Linda and I drove over to share the Labor Day holiday with them.

A little time away.  A break from the routine.  Boat rides and water sports.  Story-telling.  Board games.  Music.  Just being with family and friends. 

We call it “leisure.”  How much of it do we need?

For some of us, probably more than we carve out of a treadmill life of passionate work.

For others, probably less.  Life is work for these folks, and they do not (or maybe cannot) get off that treadmill.

The goal of this meditation is to get all of us thinking about balance between work and leisure.  Both are gifts from God.  God himself created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh – not because he was tired, but because he wanted to set a pattern for us.  Jesus preached, healed, and taught, but he also withdrew for times of solitude and prayer.  And he enjoyed a party so much that his critics called him a glutton and a drunkard (Luke 7:34).

But how do we know how much is right?  I’m not sure we’ll ever nail the right balance – even in our own minds, much less in the eyes of others.  Besides, life changes so fast that as soon as we think we have it right, a change in work or family circumstances will throw us again off kilter.

Wisdom reminds us to keep asking ourselves good questions.  Which one, if either, is a god to me – work or leisure?  Which one is so important that I cheat the other my full attention?  Is my family telling me I need more of one or the other?  Where am I out of control?