Read the following list and ask yourself how you feel at the end of it. Read a bit slowly, allowing your feelings to bubble up to the surface of your brain.
Hours spent playing solitaire on the computer.
Self-medicating with lots of alcohol on the weekend.
Numbing pain with buying things you don’t need.
On-line gambling.
Bored with nothing to do.
Watching Netflix for 17 days straight.
Lost on an internet rabbit trail and missed a call from a friend.
Five too many brownies.
Disconnected.
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This list weighs me down. I feel heavy and sluggish after thinking about prolonged empty escape.
Recreation should be life giving, life affirming and life renewing.
Recreation, without over analyzing and looking up the Greek, involves “again” + create. Creating is one of the ways we are made in the image of God. One of the ways we participate msst fully in our humanity. But Eden Lost has tricked us into believing we are most human when we are least human.
Creating can come in many forms and what might be life giving to you, may suck the life out of me – but that also points to our difference from God (he can love and be energized by everything, you and me, not so much).
Walking in the woods.
Reading by the fire.
Cooking after shopping at a farmers market.
Making lists of potential meals. (My 12 year old niece was doing this for fun last night. FOR FUN, going through cookbooks and making lists of food?! See what I mean about one person’s re-creating being another reenactment of a death scene?)
Cutting glass for a stain-glass project.
Playing basketball.
Swimming laps.
Doing puzzles with your grandma.
Playing card games and chatting while lounging on the floor.
Watching the Broncos beat any team on the PLANET.
Sitting under the stars (and in some parts of the world, pretending you can see the star will have to suffice for now).
Now this list, this list finds me feeling connected – to myself, to nature, to ideas, to people, to God – and recharged. True recreation involves engagement and fun.
I love it that prior to The Fall, work existed in Eden. But so did recreation. True, life giving recreation. Let this reminder seep into your soul today.
All the posts in the series will be added to this page each day of October. If you would like to receive these reminders in your email inbox, subscribe now. I am enjoying the journey together. Amy
What form of recreation is life giving to you?
Reminders: Love, satisfaction, extravagance, freedom, belonging, recreation
Amy,
I notice both list are things we do sometimes to get away from pain. Certainly the first list is destructive and the second builds but even so if we are using those things to escape pain we need to ask ourselves why we do not deal with the pain. I know I use things in the second list to “get away”. While that is good sometimes at times we need to quit running from pain; embrace it and work through it.
Go Pack Go! and Saints and Vikings!! :)
Good point, Mark. Yes, true recreation is to be life giving and not a form or escape. If I’m in pain, I think it’s OK to take a break from it, escape for a bit to regather myself, prayer, get ready for the work and then turn into the pain and, as you said, work through it.
And three teams?!!! How does that work? :)
SUCH a good point. I tend to err on the side of too many brownies but I feel completely different if I garden instead or write for awhile.
Thanks, Amy!
Now how about gardening and then a brownie :)!!!