The end of term comes in dribs and drabs in our house. Miriam and Esther finished ages ago because they’re at University. I’m still in Oxford, but all the students have gone. Sam has been taking exams so he finished before Silas and Linus, whose schools drag on till the end of this week. And Susie is on research leave and so term has no meaning for her and she lives in a semi-permanent state of bliss.
The thing is, though, we’re all looking forward to the summer like thirsty desert travellers who’ve just spotted an oasis. We’re all tired. We’re all a little tetchy. In my case, if you asked the family, they might say that ‘a little tetchy’, actually means, ‘a walking, talking nightmare to live with’.
I’m pretty sure I share this with a lot of people: you don’t have to be in school or a teacher to have the sense that summer is a necessary moment of respite. Whatever work we do, it’s a blessed relief to stop for a while.
Now it’s tempting to add, ‘and do something else’, so we, like many people, have planned our holidays way ahead of time. But I’m wary of the idea that when we have downtime we need to fill it. Last week I heard a parent on the radio talking about the value of boredom in the school holidays, and I think there’s something in that.
In the Bible, the prophet Isaiah knew something about weariness, that ‘end of term’ feeling. ‘Even youths will faint and be weary,’ he says, ‘and the young will fall exhausted’.
And he also knew that you can’t always just pick yourself up and carry on. You need a break. You need a proper pause.
And so he continued, ‘Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary.’
At the heart of that is the idea of waiting. Your strength isn’t going to be renewed in an instant – you wait, and refreshment comes.
So I reckon that as the holidays finally arrive, it’s worth not just packing the diary with more stuff, even if it’s different stuff. Wait first. Have a rest. And then you can run all you like.
This was interesting to read while furloughed and struggling to know whether and how to fill my days, when part of me secretly knows that I will never again have the chance to be refreshed by doing nothing. Guilt is a powerful driver preventing that kind of release. I need to take my own advice.