Holiday

I took a vacation last week. Nice time. Visited the Grand Canyon with family and friends. Of course, it snowed on the first day of Spring where I was, but, all in all, it was a lovely vacation. I got to thinking, however, about "vacation." Other versions call it "holiday." We in America think of a holiday as a special day of recognition of something in which no work is done. At least, that's the idea. "Vacation" is simply getting away, an extended period of leisure away from work. Oh, there it is! The connection between the two. Both get us away from work. Thus, we don't see a whole lot of difference between the two.

You can see, however, the roots in both words. "Vacation" is rooted in "vacate" -- to leave the premises. As a root for "simply getting away," that's great. Reasonable. "Holiday," however, clearly has a different root. Clearly the origin of the word is "holy day," and that is indeed where it came from. It originally referred to holy days, days of special religious significance. It generally included some recreation. Oh, look! Another word with roots. "Recreation" refers to "creation again" -- "re-creation." And we're back to religious connotations.

There is, in my mind, a significant difference between a "vacation" and a "holiday" as the words originally were intended. The significant difference is in the focus. A "vacation" is our attempt to rest and relax, to "get away." The primary focus of this activity is ... me. I want to relax. I want to get away. I want to stop working for awhile and satisfy my cravings for personal gratification. It's not just girls who want to have fun. "Holiday," on the other hand, in its original sense is focused away from me. It is a focus on the holy. By definition, "holy" is that which is "other," not me. Thus, a "holiday" in its original sense would be a focus on that which is other, on that which is spiritual, on that which is God.

Now, I know ... that word changed a long time ago. No one these days uses "holiday" to refer to a day to focus on the holy. I get it. I have to communicate with the words we use as we use them. I'm not complaining about it. But I do wish we had a word for "holy day." No, not really. What I wish is that we -- nay, I -- would take time to be apart from the distractions of our world to focus on God. Away from the distractions of work. Away from the distractions of pleasure. Away from a focus on me. We don't really get much of that these days, do we?