Vacation and Our Spiritual Selves

Is it too early to be thinking about summer vacation?  I know that our public schools just finished their last week, but that schools in places that had snow are not done yet.

Still, it's not too early to start to think about how we will handle our spirituality during our summer vacations, should we be lucky enough to be able to take a summer vacation.

Will we seek out the local church wherever we are and go see what we find?

Will we try something radically different?

Will we write our own liturgy?

Will we take a pilgrimage to a spiritual place?

I've written a post that explores all these possible options.  It's up at the Living Lutheran site.  Here are some quotes to whet your appetite:

"Taking our religion with us on vacation this way can be instructive. For one thing, it gives the grown-ups an opportunity to model good behavior. I took my parents’ declarations of the importance of faith seriously since they went to church every week, even while on vacation."

"Of course, in some ways, taking a vacation from church could be just as profound. Where do we find God when we’re out in the world? Will God have a better opportunity to speak when we’re away from our routines and our regular world?"

"Most of us yearn for vacations that will leave us refreshed and restored, ready to come back to our regular lives with a sense of renewal. As we plan our summer vacations, we should plan to give attention to the spiritual side of ourselves, a side that can be just as desperately in need of the benefits of a vacation as any other aspect of our lives."