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Good Morning The great summer getaway is well underway. Over 12 million car trips will be made this weekend alone with airports and ports also expected to be busy. Whether holidaying at home, in the UK, or further afield, news websites have been full of advice for days - from the most effective suncream, suggested summer books to read and, perhaps my favourite, the 10 best fish and chip shops in Britain! People have a wide range of opinions about holidays. Some adore them whilst others can’t abide them. For some the long summer break can be stressful with the extra pressure of childcare placed on working families. But it has always fascinated me how beautifully significant holiday memories are when remembering loved ones. Family holidays often have huge prominence in eulogies and tributes - cherished times are recalled with vivid, legendary stories of grandparents, parents, brothers & sisters, forever sketched in the memory. Originally, holidays were nearly always ‘holy’ days [the origin of the word] usually linked to national or local religious festivals involving a welcome cessation of work. They were days to enjoy friendship and fellowship with families and friends. But there is another phrase, often used by monks, from which the word vacation originates- vacare deo. Monks used to talk openly about having a “vacation with God” – literally to be “empty for God” a time when they did less work in the monastery and had genuine and quality time to clear the mind and do a deep dive into their contemplative life. During and immediately after the pandemic many experienced a dramatic change in their work/life balance. We had more time for ourselves and for our families: extra time “to be” and to think. We were literally forced to stop in our tracks. But, as a friend looking forward to his holiday said to me this week, perhaps we have already begun to lose a bit of what we then discovered about ourselves now that life has largely returned to normal. St Benedict, founder of the international Benedictine Order, famously observed that idleness is the enemy of the soul. A vacare deo however differentiates between doing nothing and enjoying just being: it offers space to breathe, room to think and a fresh opportunity to create new and lasting memories in sharing this with others.