"The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry!"

Almost everyone that I meet these days complains of being too busy.  

After 35 years of incarceration in Shawshank Prison, Brooks Hatlen is released on probation and, on his first day as a free man, is nearly run down by a motor car - (something which hadn't been invented before he was imprisoned).  "The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry" - he writes to his buddies still on the inside.

It's great to be busy with the right stuff - but when things swing out of control it can be no laughing matter.  Just today I chatted to an engineer friend of mine who works in one of our biggest shopping centres.  He's been sick with the flu for nearly 3 weeks and working insanely late hours on top of that - so much so in fact that he's never home in time to tuck in the kids.  When it comes to rest and recuperation, his weekends don't even come close to touching sides.  

On Thursday, I had a whirlwind catch-up with a mate who was leaving that evening for 6 days holiday in Cape Town.  He reckoned he'd be chained to his laptop for at least three of those.  "Why?" I asked.  Turns out his team has been stripped down to the bone and the company he works for won't staff up.  So it's nose to the grindstone for him it would seem - with very little light at the end of the tunnel.

Work is a funny thing - (OK, not so funny a lot of the time) - when you don't have enough you get miserable and when you have too much you are so strung out that the money hardly seems worth it. 

How do we reconcile remuneration with the often overlooked spiritual purpose behind work?  They are two very different things and balancing them often proves as challenging as a game of Jenga.

Stephen da Silva in his book "Money and the Prosperous Soul" makes the critical distinction between work and toil.  The latter is to work extremely hard or incessantly.  More than this, it is an "oppressive spiritual force" which separates work from its spiritual purpose and drives away the other vital activities necessary for maintaining our connection to God and his purpose for us.

"We have embraced slavery under toil.  Not surprisingly this is linked to our slavery to debt, for our financial obligations demand that we work under toil"

Rest, says Da Silva is critical in striking the balance.  So much so in fact that God, after freeing his people from Egypt - prescribed the Sabbath not just for prayer and study but for recreation too.  In fact, until that point, no ancient society observed a day of rest like the Jews did.  

I am not about to make a law about the Sabbath itself - but I cannot help but feel that we are still required to pay the price for real recreation - yes the price - because leisure time and recreation costs - not just monetarily but in the effort and courage required to leave our gilded cells. 

"Below the surface of the commandment is the understanding that leisure is appropriate to a free people -  Leisure is conducive to freedom - and freedom is necessary for dreaming.  Without dreaming, our creativity, by which we bring solutions, beauty and all else that makes our world better, is shut down"