Last week, I attended the 16th Annual State Bar of Texas Collaborative Law Course in Austin. One of the talented financial professionals and presenters, David T. Brunson, said something which caused me to pause. David mentioned, as an aside, that his wife told him “You have poor leisure skills.”
That remark underscores why I have attended this annual conference for the past 16 years. Learning the law is easy for me. The difficult part for me (and likely most of you) is to work (and worry) day after day for years and still remember how to play, to rest, and not to lose my leisure skills. Or what Robert Bly refers to as losing the “golden ball.”
Amidst learning how to be a better Collaborative Divorce Attorney, I learn how to be a better me. How to look at my work in a sacred way. How my calling is a spiritual journey. That my body of work touches others as children of God. Moms. Dads. Their children. My work and that of my fellow amazing members of Collaborative Divorce Texas is dedicated to healing others in divorce so they can fully experience life and leisure as children of God. To protect the relational estate in families from harm that may be caused by adversarial divorce.
I was once a child without adult responsibilities. I suffered from polio. Yet, at age eight, I recall spending every summer afternoon playing in a three-foot mud hole with my cousin Bruce. My mother sat me on the ground. Bruce and I filled the hole with water from the garden hose. We navigated our imaginary front end loaders, tractors, and army tanks over the fake levees we built. I did not have a care in the world. During those innumerable hours of play with Bruce, I never thought about the undeniable fact that I could not stand up on my own if I wanted to.
Today, I find it extremely hard to be that same child again. To be totally absorbed in leisure time. To be at the place where my thinking, working, worried brain disconnects from the adult world. Where I, like a child, dwell in a place of perfect peace.
If you look around, you can easily see other examples of perfect peace. For me, one is today’s photograph of my granddaughters, Ellora and Ellisa on this Florida beach. These two little souls and children of God had no problem with their leisure skills. Like them, when I was four, I walked along the shores of Matagorda Beach. I only wore my underwear, a straw ball cap on my head, and a t-shirt on my chest. I have never forgotten the feeling of the sand between my toes and the sound of waves rolling on the shore. A time not burdened by life. A time without thought of polio to come two years later. A time of play I often contemplate when I pray to God to help me have more moments like that.
Let us remember that whether we are young or old, we are all God’s children. God wants us to be responsible adults, parents, grandparents, and energetic workers. But God also wants me and you to be and act like children too. God’s special eternal children who rest, play, and pray in perfect peace every day.
God has spoken in Scripture about recreation and leisure.
Mark 6:31
“Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’”
Ecclesiastes 3:13
“That each of them may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.”
Let us pray.
God, in prayer please help me find the quiet peaceful place in which to be thankful for the fruits of my labor and my service to You.
God, please help me to be Your child, with a forever young and ageless heart, to make room for and enjoy leisure time with You in prayer and with others.
God, may I use my leisure time to ponder the sacredness of the precious life You have gifted me.
God, may I use leisure time as an opportunity to pray, to go to church, to journal, to meditate, do yoga, to appreciate the arts and music, and to be fully aware of what it truly means to be your wondrous blessed child. Amen
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If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist
Thank you, Jack, for this timely message. My grown kids need it as they seldom just stop and be kids again.
Happy Easter.