Diamonds are Forever, not Holidays

Being awakened by the smell of bacon, spending afternoons hunting through op shops and wandering around broad, tree lined avenues punctuated by coffee shops - that's a nice way to spend your holiday.  And I did.  I frolicked and sang and tra-la-la-ed.  Lattes abounded, as did photo ops in the beautiful hill country of Adelaide.  Rolling out of bed at 7, only to return 17 hours later was alright for a week.  Who needed sleep when fun was to be had? 

Then I came back.  Back to work at the Mexican restaurant, back to puzzling through supply lists for craft stations, back to cleaning up my own messes and schedules and dishes.  As suddenly as my holiday had begun, it was over.  Like a kite that rides a down draught of wind, I plummeted back to reality.  Reality was where I realized, diamonds may be forever, but holidays are not. 

Could the entirety of my human existence be worthily spent being awoken by the wafting temptation of bacon and living out of a backpack?  Is there a calling that would answer the question "why am I here" with ambling leisurely where I pleased, picking up volumes of poetry in antique shops? 

The week before I left for Adelaide, I stood reading an article in a psychology magazine at the library.  The article was written about the paradox of the hunt for happiness.  It noted that the most direct way to happiness was not by seeking it, but actually in seeking more grandiose things like the good of others and challenging tasks.  Seeking happiness directly as a product of experiences or acquisition of goods was found to be less successful. 

So perhaps it is better that work and calling pervade the majority of our time.  How could we ever become people of excellent character if it were not for the calluses, the bruises, the sweat borne on every forehead who has ever worked?  Could becoming like Jesus really be brought about by going on cruises and sipping frothy latte foam in the shade of a sprawling magnolia? 

It must be a telling sign that I have much work left to do if the return to such rankles me so.  How many years of work I have left to do!  How many long nights and trying hours are still to come in order to teach me perseverance and true passion for doing what is right!  Holidays are grand and meant to be enjoyed - and I certainly do enjoy mine when they come - but life is not meant to be whiled away in the cover of a beach umbrella with the latest easy-read fiction.  This is not the good life, as some might suppose.  Rather, the honor of humanity is in working out our calling.  Not just a general call from the great beyond to the most highly evolved species, but a high calling from a Caller to His created.  There can be no calling without One to issue it. 

No doubt, there will be more times when work seems less romantic, less deserving of passion than, say, going sky diving or learning French poetry.  In actuality, it is more romantic, more deserving of passion because it is the rise to a great occasion, the abandonment of silly distractions to do what we were created to do. 

With that, I leave you for the company of my pillow, where I will dream wild dreams before waking to a day of… work training. 

Little Miss Sunshine

PS I've been reading Shakespeare, who has left traces of his phrasing in this post, and some of these ideas of calling I credit to Mr. Os Guinness and his book, The Call, which is excellent and worthy of your time.