Well it is the holiday season again. Hopefully, this year we will see more clement weather than we have seen previously. For, there is no doubt about it, holidays are far better with holiday sunshine!
Yet there must be more to days away from our daily toil, than just enjoying warmth and fresh air. Since real breaks also involve thinking just what is important in our journeying.
Now as a frequent visitor to National Trust and other stately homes on holiday, I often get ‘on the chat’ with the various room attendants who must guard the many treasures on display. And what an interesting ‘crew’ they tend to be! Take for example, the lady who had installed the latest green power generation system in her Yorkshire house or the one who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of weekend house parties in the 20’s. However, none can rival the guide who informed me, when I had planked myself down in a window seat at Sandringham, that ‘The Queen also likes to sit there’!
Indeed, every holiday encounter is a reminder that when we are relaxed and at leisure there is no better time to share companionship in the way that Christ would want us too. Because that is the time-honoured way of the pilgrim; or as a prayer in Ely Cathedral goes:
God of pilgrimage, be with me on
My journey through life;
Guard and defend me,
Shelter and feed me,
Challenge and inspire me,
Teach me and lead me,
And when my journey has ended
Welcome me home at last –
To rest in your love forever.
May these words go with you wherever you may roam this summer.
Taystar 