We are beginning a new series in our Adult Community at College Church in Wheaton led by Leland Ryken -- kickoff being this morning with an interesting quizlet, given in true Wheaton College Professorial style. Upshot of the whole thing was that Lee wanted some volunteers to keep a log of leisure and work time this week, and then report on it next Sunday morning. No one volunteered, however Ned & Linda Gulbransen were volunteered -- and then someone behind me (I didn't see who, but I have a good idea) volunteered me.
So, I'm thinking about it. What is work? What is leisure? How do I decide? Is, for example, blogging on work and leisure actually WORK, because I'm doing it as part of an assignment, or is it LEISURE, because I rather enjoy writing (not that you'd know it by the paucity of posts in this blog), or is it in that sort of grey, nebulous place of neither one nor the other?
I'm hoping to find out what is what....
If you enjoy doing something, then is it leisure? Even if it is work? I love lecturing, but that is my work -- and it expends a lot of energy (not enough...doesn't burn nearly enough calories to my way of thinking) -- and I wouldn't call it leisure...
I don't like cooking as anyone who knows me at all can attest to. So for me, cooking -- even thinking about cooking -- is work.
What about getting dressed in the morning. After all, showering, dressing, putting on the coffee, making the bed -- sorta getting ready for the day....does that fall into either of the above categories? I HAVE to do it (goodness knows, I'd be ostracized if I didn't)...but I'm not sure it's work (though some days getting up and moving along seems pure drudgery).
I suppose there are a bunch of things that are going to fall into the neither one nor the other category....
It will be interesting to see how the week falls out. Especially given that I'm not "working" this week -- I'm home....
As LeeLee will attest, work is often pleasurable (there was work in the garden of Eden, after all), so we can't define leisure as anything and everything we enjoy doing. I think it's partly about the motivation: if it's for pay or because you have to do it it's work even if you enjoy it, and if it's an activity chosen for the fun of it, it's leisure. Or maybe it's leisure if you would still choose the activity even if you weren't paid? Hard to say. Sometimes a leisure activity suddenly becomes drudgery/work when I start getting paid for it. Cooking isn't often leisure for me, that I know for sure. Although occasionally I enjoy it. And blogging isn't work, because I enjoy it and it does not give me any income. And jewelry-making is definitely leisure even though I occasionally make money from it and it's definitely work:) I think we can give thanks for those times when we can't tell if an activity is work or leisure, because that means we're enjoying our work!
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