Going Deeper

We all know that when God had finished with his work of creation he rested. It is a beautiful image of the deity at peace, completely satisfied with all that has been done. One gets the impression that God does not go off and lie down somewhere, but sits and watches his creation with total delight. These opening verses of Genesis 2 are an endorsement of the idea of having leisure time: yes we are to work hard but we are also to find a good rhythm in our lives that includes rest and relaxation and that allows us to have space both for ourselves and for other people.

Of course we all find leisure in different things. Some of us are party animals and others of us hermits. Some of us enjoy walking holidays whilst others of us want to lie on a beach all day. Some people enjoy action holidays whilst others may prefer to explore art galleries and restaurants. Some people want to do all of these things and more whilst others just want to enjoy being at home!

The key point is that leisure is good and a positive gift from God to be enjoyed and what we do with our leisure time belongs to God as well. That doesn’t mean that we have to spend our holidays in a local church! It does mean that all we do should be done in a way that remembers our responsibility to care for all that God has made.

This Leisure category contains a host of ideas for using our leisure time in ways that are good for the planet and enjoyable to boot. The Sabbath Rest section also has a couple of helpful things for us to reflect on.

It is the Ethical Holidays section that we will focus on here, partly because we don’t always fully appreciate that our holidays are a part of a massive industry, in fact one of the largest in the world. In fact, in the UK alone, nearly 70 million tourist trips abroad were taken in 2007, let alone all the holidays taken with the UK. Tourism can bring immense benefits to the host country. In the UK, the tourism, leisure and and hospitality industry is worth over £100 billion annually and employs 2 million people, but in other countries it is an even more essential part of the economy; a significant point when you consider that 30% of international tourists visit the developing world.

However, sadly tourism often has negative effects on the receiving countries, particularly in those less economically developed. One of the biggest problems is that a large proportion of the money generated can stay in the tourist-sending countries. In some cases as little as 10p of every £1 spent may stay in low-income countries. Tourist demands mean that they may stay in foreign-owned hotels, eating imported food, and visiting attractions with fixed prices arranged by the hotel chain.

Another issue is that of human rights abuses. This may be an issue through tourism money going to support a corrupt government with poor human rights records (eg. Turkey, Indonesia and the Gambia) or it may be a direct result of the tourism itself, such as the eviction of people from their lands in order to meet the demand for safaris (as happened in 1988 with the creation of the Mkomazi Game Reserve in Tanzania).

And, of course, people are not the only ones who can suffer through tourism. A Rocha itself was started as a result of the effects of tourism on the Algarve coast, where mass tourism and EC grants led to the destruction of cork-oak plantations, almond and olive orchards and sustainable fishing, replacing them with the rapid (but often unsustainable) profits of hotels, golf courses and marinas.

It hardly needs stating that holidays can cause problems before you even arrive and the question of how you travel somewhere in the first place is a crucial one to consider. There is more on this in the going deeper section of travel.

After all of this let us remind ourselves that leisure time is good and is a blessing to be enjoyed. How better to spend our leisure times in ways that benefit both ourselves and the world in which we live?

(The statistics in this article are taken from Ruth Valerio’s, L is for Lifestyle:Christian living that doesn’t cost the earth)

Ruth Valerio, 10/05/2009