Three years ago, I met my wife on one of my favorite hikes in the local LA Mountains: The Mount Wilson trail. With 5,000 feet of elevation gain in 7 miles, this trail sits among one of the most challenging in Southern California. (Yes, LA has mountains…but that’s another story.)
Little did we know it then, but this was to be the first of a string of our hiking adventures: Ice House Canyon (where she first leaned on me), The Bridge to Nowhere (where we came across the elusive Big Horn Sheep), and Cucamonga Peak (where we got lost and made it home in the dark). Hiking has become our thing. There is just something about the rhythm of our gate, the quietness of nature, the simple act of noticing the beauty and complexity of God’s creation. When we hike we come home to ourselves.
This weekend marked a milestone in our adventures. The highest peak in Southern California is the 11,503 ft. summit of San Gorgornio. “Old Grey Back” (as she is affectionately called) is a beautiful and challenging climb. We intentionally took our time: taking in the sights, dipping our feet in an irresistible creek, pausing to take in the beauty.
“Do we work for the weekend? Or do we make our vocation our vacation?”
We reached the summit just before sunset, set up our tents, made a quick dinner, and enjoyed the mind-numbing beauty of a sunset with views from Indio to LA. As we crawled into our sleeping bags gloriously exhausted we thanked God for the breathtaking beauty we’d been treated to: towering California Cedars, delicate mountain flowers, cascading waterfalls, and even a rare sighting of a California Mountain Kingsnake. Carrying only what was absolutely necessary, we made our home away from home. And God saw that it was very good.
We’re back home. We’ve put away our gear, showered, eaten, and are getting ready for Monday. Our environment is the same as we left it. Our cats (we have two sisters) are still lounging around in their typical spots. The bills that were unpaid are still there, needing attention. And yet. For even though we’ve left the mountains, the mountains haven’t left us. We’ve taken them with us. And the connection we felt with God and each other will be with us as we head into work tomorrow morning.
In 1981 the rock band Loverboy immortalized the line “Everybody’s Working for the Weekend.” The line was written by band member Paul Dean. According to Dean, one Wednesday afternoon he noticed the beach was empty and concluded, “Well, I guess they're all waiting for the weekend." It took well over three decades for the band Dirty Heads to respond to Dean’s lyric with their own infamous line, “A-a-ay, I'm on vacation every single day 'cause I love my occupation.”
So which is it? Do we work for the weekend? Or do we make our vocation our vacation?
In the classic masterpiece, The Sabbath, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel offers a different vision. He writes, “The work on the weekdays, and the rest on the seventh day are correlated. The Sabbath is the inspirer, the other days are inspired.”
“Our weekend and weekday—our rest and our labor—are meant to be deeply inter-dependent asymmetrical forms of worshiping the God who both works and intentionally ceases from work. ”
What Heschel understands (and Loverbody and Dirty Heads miss) is that the weekend and weekdays are not meant to be absorbed into the other. Rather, our weekend and weekday—our rest and our labor—are meant to be deeply inter-dependent asymmetrical forms of worshiping the God who both works and intentionally ceases from work.
During our work week we reflect the integrity, care, and excellency of God as we work with integrity, care for our neighbor, and excellence. The weekend (typically) is when we take time to engage in holy leisure—setting aside a day to turn off our smartphones and set aside our work projects to enjoy the fruit of our labor in the presence of God.
This sabbath rest (“sabbath” literally means “not working”) can incorporate any number of private or social leisure activities (a picnic, a hike, a game, enjoying art, reading a good book, taking a nap, etc.), but the point is to stop and take in life as a gift. Sabbath is about joy and rest—a unique form of connection to God that inspires us when we re-engage our work as those called to image the God who works.
(Of course, the Sabbath is a fascinating and rich Biblical concept that includes much more than recreational and physical rest. And in the next blog, I hope to further unpack the Sabbath. Stay tuned!)
To recap: No, we don’t work for the weekend. Nor do we make our work a weekend. Rather, we embrace both work and rest as those made in the image of the God who does both.
Robert Covolo is a Cultural Theologian and Author of Fashion Theology. He is also on staff here at the Center for Faith + Work Los Angeles, serving as our Director of Vocational Discipleship.