Thoughts on Leisure

Matthew 6:25-34
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,
what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.
Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not much more valuable than they?
Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
And why do you worry about clothes?
See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.
Yet I tell you that not even Solomon
in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
If that is how God clothes the grass of the field,
which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire,
will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or
'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'
For the pagans run after all these things,
and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given to you as well.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.
Each day has enough trouble of its own.

There have been times when leisure seemed like the mist rising on a winter morning. It had an ethereal feel to it perhaps due to my own hazy understanding of leisure. Recently I came across this story about the Architect Frank Lloyd Wright in some of my clippings.

Frank Lloyd Wright once told of an incident that perhaps seemed insignificant at the time, but had a profound influence on the rest of his life.

The winter he was nine years old, he went walking across a snow-covered field with his reserved, no-nonsense uncle. As the two of them reached the far end of the field, his uncle stopped him, and pointed out his own tracks in the snow, straight and true as an arrow’s flight. He then pointed out young Frank’s tracks, which meandered all over the field.

“Notice how your tracks wander aimlessly from the fence to the cattle to the woods and back again,” his uncle said. “And see how my tracks aim directly to my goal. There is an important lesson in that.”

Years later, the world-famous architect liked to tell how this experience had greatly contributed to his philosophy of life. “I determined right then,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “not to miss most things in life, as my uncle had.”

I think Frank Lloyd Wright’s meandering across that snow-covered field, curiously looking at everything in his path, comes very close to this notion of contemplation and genuine leisure. May I continue to meander and not miss the small pleasures.