Vacation rovings ... and the search for real life

It’s mid-summer and peak vacation time in the scenic and majestic Seeley-Swan Valley. Every summer there’s a mass migration of visitors and adventurers on the highway, on the trails and in the local shops. Even when gas prices are high and lodging costs exorbitant, people are vacationing across the land. And why, one might wonder, is that?

Certainly, relief from COVID travel restraints is part of it. But it’s not new, the yearning to travel, to break away from routine, to be free and spontaneous, to discover new places, people, things and to be creative.

Perhaps this yearning is a deeper yearning…a yearning for “real life.” Interestingly, during excavations of the lost Roman civilization in North Africa in the last century, an inscription of the second or third century was discovered in the marketplace of Timgad in Algeria: Hunting, bathing (swimming), playing, laughter -- this is life. This is the promise of vacation for both modern and ancient man. While we all realize that recreation isn’t the ultimate goal of life, these pauses for breath are absolutely necessary for us to be fully human.

In an increasingly fast-paced and technological world, we need to pause from the frantic activity of daily life – to take time to draw breath and rest – as the creature, man is designed to do. We need to rediscover the attitudes of beholding, wonder, recollection and quiet. When we live so much in an artificial world of man-made things, we need to leave it behind and seek to encounter creation in a natural state, fresh from the hands of God.

Vacation time is so much more than a time for fun. It can be a creative time when our mind and heart are more open to all the wonders we encounter, more aware of the moment we are in and more present to the people beside us. Vacation time is an opportunity to renew ourselves body and soul and to renew relationships with each other and with the Creator who gave us this wondrously beautiful world – these green woods and mountain peaks pointing to the sky.

Let our gratitude for the beauty that surrounds us turn into a prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God from Whom all blessings flow.

May your summer be blessed with grateful wonder…and rest for your soul!