1. Affluent people today spend significant time and money trying to relieve stress through therapies and self-help strategies, as stress has become a major focus of industries. However, St. Thomas Aquinas believed stress had a spiritual cause. 2. Australians now spend more time watching television than engaging in activities once depicted in iconic photographs like "Sunbaker," and children play outside less than prisoners. 3. Some see leisure as an opportunity for relaxation or fun, while others view it as a sign of underachievement. Different traditions and eras have understood and engaged with leisure in varying ways.

2. “Affluent people today spend significant time and money on stress-relief,
anti-tension therapies, anxiety cures, and other self-help and self-pampering
strategies. Stress and tension are very real in people’s lives. And with their
cure now the subject of major industries, we are all increasingly suggestible
to diagnosis of these lifestyle sicknesses… St Thomas Aquinas explained that
he felt sure that this problem had a spiritual cause.”
(Reclaiming Leisure: Art, Sport and Philosophy. By H. Ramsay)IMAGE: Peanuts Wisdom: Me, Stressed Out?
Charles Schulz (1996)
IMAGE: Sunbaker, 1937, Max Dupain
Australians
spend one
entire month
a year
watching telly
Only 8%
of adult
Australians
swim each
year
STATS: Australian Bureau Statistics, 2013
Compared to the reality of Aussie life, “the speedo clad Adonis & Aphrodite
of our imaginations quickly drowns. Max Dupain’s iconic photograph titled
‘Sunbaker’ (1937) might now seem something of a relic...
Were Dupain’s “Sunbaker” reshot today, he might be staring at a mobile
phone. And probably on his couch, not on the beach.”
(SMH - Andrew Stephens 31 Dec 2015)
50% of
Americans
never read
a book
UK children play out-
side for 4hrs a week.
Prisoners in the UK
spend 7hrs a week
outside.
“…If you’d told me I needed to spend more of my life relaxing or having fun,
let alone playing, I’d have smiled and nodded in agreement, while privately
concluding you must be one of life’s underachievers, attempting to make a
virtue out of your loserhood.”
(Oliver Burkeman, in New Philosopher, April 2018 )
LEISURE: CRITICAL or CUSHY

3. 1. Which of the above expressions of Leisure do you feel most
comfortable engaging in?
2. Which of these do you feel most unsettled engaging in? Why?
3. Which of these do you experience the deepest longing for?
Why might that be?
4. Can any of these be experienced concurrently with WORK?
PLAY
DOWN
-TIME
FREE-
TIME
HOLIDAY
ENTERTAINMENT
RELAXATION
BREATHER
PEACE
KILLING
TIME
RECESS
HOBBIE
RECREATION
WEEK-
END
VACATION
JUBILEE
SABBATICAL
RESPITE
SPARE
-TIME
CONVALESCENCE
FURLOUGH
RETIREMENT
LEAVE
PAST-
TIME
Leisure
WHAT ARE WE
ACTUALLY
TALKING
ABOUT?

4. BABYLONIAN
CREATION MYTH
Work was considered
below the dignity of
the ‘gods’. The ‘gods’
created humanity to
serve them as slaves
and thus allow them to
live in leisure.
Leisure was a mark of
power-status.
The goal of this divine
leisure was...
...DEBAUCHERY
GREEK
ARISTOTLE’s PHILOSOPHY
Leisure was the APEX
of life in Greek thought.
The Greek word for work
was literally “non-leisure”
Leisure was a mark of
cultured-status. Work
was considered a curse
and below the dignity of
a FREE person. Slaves
worked so free citizens
could devote themselves
to leisure.
The goal of the Greek
ideal of leisure is...
...TO DEVELOP CIVIC
VIRTUE
The Greek word for
Leisure was “schole” -
giving us our English
word “school”!
Entertainment & relax-
ation allowed slaves to
recharge for work.
ROMAN
CLASSICAL + EMPIRE
Roman thought inherited
Aristotle’s ideals at first.
As the Empire reached
it’s furthest limits, Leisure
took on a socio-political
role. The Colosseum
became a venue in which
great military victories of
the past were re-enacted.
The goal of leisure was
therefore...
...TO RE-ENACT THE
FOUNDATIONS OF
ROMAN SOCIETY
As the empire’s growth
eased, leisure increasingly
degenerated into “bread
and circuses”...
TO DISTRACT MASSES
FROM REVOLUTION-
ARY IMPULSES
SECULAR / SACRED
As the Roman church
increased in influence
through the middle ages,
life was divided into
sacred & secular spheres.
Based upon Aristotle’s
ideal the goal of lesiure
was therefore...
...TO DEVELOP
SPIRITUAL VIRTUE
This sacred pursuit was
mainly limited to the
clerical sphere, and
distanced from the
sphere of government,
marriage and work.
While leisure was mainly
a clerical sphere, the laity
participated on regular
Holy-days. Sometimes
these “holy-days” simply
degenerated into
excuses for debauchery.
Genesis 2:2-3 + 8-9, 3:8
Psalm 104:10-15, 27-28
God works to establish
REST, both for himself,
& those he’s shared his
image / authority with.
The goal of REST is for
active reception of,
engagement with, and
delight in creation.
REST is experienced in
open fellowship with
God, not in conflict with
his interests.
Genesis 2:15, 23, 3:17
Exodus 23:10-12
All human activity was
intended to be RESTFUL.
REST is the fruit of God’s
work, not the labour of
slaves. It is radically
democratic - for all.
REST is the invitation to
enjoy God’s good and
completed work, not the
obligation to strive in
perfecting ourselves.
LEISURE as either RELIEVING or
REST as RECIEVING
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
Leviticus 23:39-43
REST provides the
opportunity to celebrate,
recall, and also enjoy
God’s glorious work -
ie. worship.
REST is focussed upon
remembering and
enjoying God’s great
accomplishments, NOT
for distracting ourselves
from human failure.
Matthew 11:28-30
Mark 2:23-27
Hebrews 4:3-4, 10
REST depends upon
receiving God’s
completed work in Jesus.
REST is not for spiritually
elite development of
virtue or character.

5. PRE + REFORMATION
DIGNITY OF WORK
During the middle ages
clerical abuse of church-
sponsored sacred leisure
provoked much criticism.
Luther removed the
heirachy between
sacred leisure & secular
work by promoting...
i) Work as service to God
ii) The priesthood of all
believers
Holy-days & sabbath
focussed upon...
...BLESSING WE
RECEIVE FROM GOD
The puritans legislated
public days-off in order
to encourage...
...RE-CREATION FOR
WORKERS
ENLIGHTENMENT
HUMANISM
Enlightenment thinkers
maintained the high
value of work. However
they abandoned the key
convictions that...
i) Work serves God
ii) Holy-days celebrate
what’s received from God
Human effort (not God)
became the source of
ALL human flourishing.
The goal of lesiure was
now...
...TO DISPLAY HUMAN
ACHIEVEMENT &
PURSUE HAPPINESS
Now God was “dead”,
Leisure (in form of sport)
also took on the goal of...
...SOCIAL & MORAL
CHARACTER
FORMATION
INDUSTRIAL AGE
PRODUCTIVITY
Work, industrialisation, &
mechanisation promised
to improve productivity
and usher in the future of
Leisure for all.
Capitalism & Marxism
did pursue an ultimate
ideal of either free or
cultured use of time.
However, in the mean
time lesiure was primarily
treated as a means to...
...AID PRODUCTIVITY
Even SLEEP (as non-work
time) is now assessed in
terms of productivity
“gained or lost”.
In as much as leisure
serves no productive use,
it becomes just another
product to consume.
ACHIEVING
Romans 12 + 14:5-6
Mark 2:23-27
What makes an activity
SACRED is whether it is
done to the Lord, NOT
whether is is done by
clergy or laity.
Sabbath REST is not a
matter of spiritual
performance, but for
our embodied and
social good.
Exodus 16:17-32
Ecclesiastes 5:12
Luke 12:15-21 (22-34)
The pursuit of security
and prosperity apart from
God never leads to
REST.
Failing to recognise that
REST is received from
God leads to anxiety,
futility and overwork.
Revelation 14:8, 11-13
The scriptures end with
a sobering reminder as
to who’s vision of life
results in REST.

6. 1. Rest is found in “Receivement”, not Achievement.
Could our overwhelming sense of dissatisfaction and stress be because we have lost the
ability to receive gifts - specifically, God’s gifts? Have we perhaps deluded ourselves that
everything is acquired, earned, and achieved?
In his book on Leisure Ryken suggests that key to experiencing rest is having...
“a receptive attitude of mind... a sense of celebration conceived as joy in the acceptance
of our place in the world... a capacity to receive the reality of the world.” (Ryken p.34)
Tip a. Note the similarity between the Jewish Sabbath, and what has traditionally been
the Christian day of rest: the last and the first day of the week. Both are intended
to focus our thoughts on the rest we receive, not the rest we achieve.
Sabbath = The 7th day of the week. It acts as a weekly reminder that all God’s work
is directed, ultimately, towards the rest he establishes for us.
Sunday = The 1st day of the week. It acts as a weekly reminder that in Jesus’
resurrection we already share in the promise of bodily and spiritual rest. We kick off
the week with that wonderful assurance.
Feast days = were traditionally not intended as a “work” of religious devotion,
but as an occasion to remember and rest in God’s work!
Christmas and Easter do not exist in order to top up our energy tank for another
6 months of wearying work. Rather, they are to allow us space to engage with God’s
work of salvation, and understand the way it defines us!
Tip b. “The disjunction between a day of rest and a day of worship ignores the fact that, to
the Jew, rest was itself an expression of worship.” The distinction between rest and
worship is a false one: resting was worship, for on the Sabbath the Israelites “did not
merely rest as they rested at night, involuntarily, to restore and refresh their powers of
body and mind; on the Sabbath they rested deliberately, in obedience to God’s
command, in commemoration of his creative work, and in imitation of his own rest at
the end of that work.””
“Leisure and Spirituality (Engaging Culture): Biblical, Historical, and Contemporary Perspectives” Paul Heintzman
T
Ask the question:
Do our patterns of leisure help us receive and engage with God’s given reality,
or are they consumed with the idea of escaping (or achieving) reality?
“What am I reminded to receive from God in *this* particular expression of Leisure? “
4 TIPS TO EMBRACING REST
IN THE MIDST OF LEISURE AND WORK

7. 2. Work and Rest are not in polar opposition.
There is no fundamental barrier to...
“people achieving recreation at work - or creating useful products during their leisure...
renewal can be achieved through other means than play, or reflection, including work:
and leisure can be fruitful.” (Ramsay)
a. Productivity does not by itself always make good work - sometimes leisure makes work restful!
Galileo: Invented modern timekeeping after watching a pendulum swing in a Cathedral.
Newton: Made a breakthrough in understanding gravity while sitting under a tree.
Archimedes: Figured out how to measure the mass of objects while getting into a bath.
Oliver Sacks: Illuminated music’s incredible effects upon the mind while hiking in a
Norwegian fjord.
b. Oliver Burkeman (in New Philosophy - April, 2018)
“The deep problem with dedicating the whole of your time to productive and useful projects isn’t
simply that it is exhausting, or depressing when they don’t work out.... It encourages you to value
any given moment only insofar as it helps achieve some future purpose - which means constantly
leaning away from the present, and never quite being here now. Trapped in such a mindset, the
pleasures of actually accomplishing a goal, however brilliantly, are strikingly brief: days or even
hours later, it’s time to set a new goal, and start straining toward the future once more.”
c. Genesis 2
Even God’s work of planting a garden is defined by its taste and beauty, not just it’s effectiveness.
3. Failing to embrace Rest is a failure to Worship.
a. The reformer Martin Luther warned Philip Melanchthon:
“Don’t overwork and then pretend you did it in obedience to God”
b. Wolff in describing the “manna” incident from Israel’s history:
“...it is an almost humorous criticism of our restless, over-zealousness for work. Work on the
7th day is ridiculed as foolish, for its results are nil; it fails to acknowledge that God supplies
what is needed. Human life is not dependent on a human’s unceasing work but on God’s
provision and care.”
“Leisure and Spirituality (Engaging Culture): Biblical, Historical, and Contemporary Perspectives” Paul Heintzman

8. c. Anglican theologian, Oliver O’Donvoan:
“Satisfaction needs its object, something real to repose upon; our own works, our own lives,
do not possess that objectivity... a shift in the light can persuade us that our life and work
are pointless; great souls (like Aquinas and Grotius among them) have entertained on their
deathbeds the fearful suspicion that their labor amounted to nothing but vanity of vanities.
Unless we become familiar with repentance and renewal, it is never possible to rest, for even
the deeds in which we imagine we may rest can very quickly appear in another light.
As we grow older, we find ourselves ashamed by the accomplishments that gave us pride when
we were young. The best performances are open to doubt and deconstruction.”
(Entering into Rest, 2017)
4. We can experience real Rest even in it’s incompleteness.
a. Andrew Cameroon on experiencing rest TODAY
Commenting on Hebrews 4:9-11
“The passage doesn’t only dangle rest as a “carrot” tomorrow for arduous toil today.
Our end, our goal, our final trajectory is restful, which is also played out as we inhabit that
trajectory today. Christians often glimpse that rest in moments of joy, in periods of deep
contentment, in spaces filled with adoring worship, and in very literal moments of physical rest.
We rely gladly upon the truth that the future isn’t merely a project of our own making.
Our performances and projects don’t construct reality.”
(Joined-Up Life, p.167)
b. Anglican theologian, Oliver O’Donovan on the incompleteness of our experience of rest:
“In the raising of children, the transition from project to accomplishment is not focussed on a
decisive moment. There will be a day, no doubt, when the children are self supporting adults,
when the parent, no longer responsible for turning them out neatly and controlling their
behaviour, can simply take pride in them as members of society. But long before that, while the
parental labour still continues, there are incremental moments of accomplishment and satisfaction:
the performance in the nativity play, the arrival of the school report, cheering the loosing side in
the match, and so on. Parents are always rehearsing, one might say, for an accomplishment that
will never quite be achieved this side of the grave.”
(Entering into Rest, 2017)