I am working at relaxing today. I say 'working at' because I have to admit that it is often difficult for me to avert my eyes from the tasks that always need to be done in any house, the piles that always seem to rise on any desk. So, today, I am trying my level best to chill, to lolly-gag, to read, drink iced tea, restore my soul and just let the hours pass gently, slowly.

Relaxing has become a bit of a lost art, I think. Even our leisure time seems to have purpose these days. What happened to aimless walks instead of power walks? Is it possible to have a day without to-do lists? Could there be reward in waking up without a plan for every day of the week?

Yesterday I observed several different people in states of what I would call relaxation. I noticed two beautiful women dressed in red and orange saris sitting on a park bench, their faces close together, talking animatedly, laughing as they threw their heads back.There very presence seemed to shout "no worries." In another place I saw a young woman, in what seemed to be her work-clothes, a dress anyway, laying modestly on the grass soaking up the sun, day dreaming or perhaps even dozing. Outside my office window the children from our vacation Bible school sat in small clumps, talking quietly to one another as they threw little objects, sticks, leaves, an acorn, up into the air, as sweat glistened on their sweet faces. They had had a full day and it was time to relax.

How do you relax? What hoops do you need to jump through to let go of all the things that 'must' be done so you can settle into the art of being? Do you plan for relaxation in the course of your daily life? I think we all would agree it is a good and important thing to do and is most often in short supply.

The weekend is about to unfold before us. My prayer is that relaxation will be some part of these final days of summer, that each of us can find a few minutes, even hours, to settle into the gift of breathing in the now cooling air, of simply being without purpose. Everything that needs to be done will be there when we've come back from the land of pure gift, pure joy. And we will be refreshed enough to tackle it.

"Leisure, it must be understood, is a mental and spiritual attitude-it is not simply the result of external factors, it is not the inevitable result of spare time, a holiday, a weekend or a vacation….(it is) a condition of the soul"  ~Peiper