Leisure and Christian Psychology

Much of our culture’s attitude to work is displayed in the way that we describe its absence.  In contemporary life, we think of Monday through Friday as a typical “work week” and tend to look forward to the “weekend” when we can have a “break” from work; even better than this are the intermittent “vacations” we are able to “take.”   But a careful look at these terms will indicate that they convey not a fullness, a presence, but rather simply a temporary cessation of “work.”  Our culture even justifies these “breaks” and “vacations” by recourse to productivity:  a rested worker is a happy worker, and therefore a more productive worker.