Recovering Leisure at Thanksgiving: Planning Spontaneity

It is one of the great crises of our day, the more serious for its being largely unnoticed. The lack of truly ‘free time’ in our life is masked by our referring to chunks of our time as ‘free.’ But for several generations, wise observers have pointed to a radical new way that we live-in and experience time—one that tends to preclude having free time in the richest sense. 

“I have time when I am not conscious of time which presses in upon me… He who has leisure thereby disposes of boundless time; he lives in the fulness of time, be he active or at rest.” These striking words were written by Friedrich Junger in 1939. He goes on, “The technological organization of work no longer permits leisure; it grants to the tired laborer only the meager measure of vacation and spare time that is absolutely necessary to maintain his efficiency.”

In Junger’s sights is a shift so deep that once it happens it escapes our notice since we have little or no direct experience of anything else. I am inclined to accept his assertion of our impoverished sense of time for two main reasons. First, it squares with a widely held perception that no matter what we do, we just don’t have enough time. And second, from accounts of bygone days, this has not always been the case. 

Junger distinguishes spare time and truly free time. Sure, people have time set aside as ‘spare’; but as hinted at in the name, this is extra or leftover time that is a kind of escape from the dominant and determinative time which is anything but ‘boundless’ or ‘full.’ Such spare time is very much of a piece with our non-leisure time. We measure, count, and perhaps even dread its passing and so any experience of boundlessness eludes us.

One of the main features of our current experience, or practice, of time is that we always feel its scarcity, and so we are consistently 'hungry for time.' But if Junger has rightly perceived our situation, the heart of the problem is that we lack the kind of time (called ‘leisure’ by the philosophers) that would really fulfill the hunger. And so, we live with a constant sense of shortage and lack rather than plenitude.

One might ask: but isn’t this normal? I would distinguish between normal in the sense that it usually happens versus in the sense that it should be expected. Clearly, it is now normal in the first sense. But grounded in the ancient notion of leisure, Junger, Josef Pieper, and other wise commentators of our age roundly deny it is ‘normal’ in the latter sense. Yes, some scarcity of time is part of the human experience. But it certainly need not and should not be the dominant experience of time, though that is what it has become.

[By engaging in] activities that uniquely bring us together ... we enter a higher dimension in which people and the things that matter most come to the fore; and the passing of time, at least for a spell, takes a back seat.

So, what does this have to do with Thanksgiving? As Pieper points out, festivity is a central form of leisure in human life. In view of this, I will make what might be a controversial assertion. The transformation of how we do Thanksgiving in the last generation or so is a significant sign of the malady Junger addresses. 

On the other hand, Thanksgiving done well can and should offer an experience—especially to the young!—of full, rich time. But perhaps without noticing, many of us have participated in a brave new Thanksgiving, one in which the fulness of enduring things is squeezed out and the press of the passing comes in. 

Shopping, for instance, is not an exercise in fulness. As Wendell Berry and Christopher Lasch have pointed out, the fact that we turn to shopping as recreation is a sign of a loss of real leisure. I know this can be a sensitive topic, and this could seem unfairly ‘judgmental’ of shoppers. I suggest a different read. To point to the possibility of something greater—indeed something that is not just greater but is demanded and so needed by the human heart—is not to insult those who shop. It is to call men and women back to themselves.

The situation with sports-viewing is analogous. It might seem that watching sports is not appreciated by the philosopher-types who point out that it, like shopping, is not an exercise of real leisure. Again, I suggest a good approach is to consider that the problem with sports-viewing, as with shopping, is most in what it replaces.

If one thing has become clear in this challenging age, it is that true free time comes to those who prioritize and so cultivate it. Rich leisure activities, long recognized as the cornerstone of a fully human life, bring a deep stability to the realm of change and an aspect of eternity into time. 

It goes without saying that there are times for shopping and for watching sports. But we need to recognize that today, what should be special (even ‘sacred’) spaces and times have been incrementally minimized, undermined, or altogether removed. Our communal autopilot continues to drive down this path. Here we need but think of Sundays; or dinner time; or family singing time; or storytelling; or prayer time. Or Thanksgiving. 

The recovery of truly ‘free time’ is a serious undertaking—one calling for an intentional arranging of times and contexts that prioritizes activities that were once normal in both senses enunciated above. It makes sense to begin with a day that was originally set aside for such activities. This Thanksgiving, we might start with really taking time to give thanks together and to praise the Lord. We might play some sport rather than watch professionals doing so. Or, we can tell stories, read a classic story or essay aloud, play a parlor game, or go for a walk together.

These are activities that uniquely bring us together. In them, we enter a higher dimension in which people and the things that matter most come to the fore; and the passing of time, at least for a spell, takes a back seat.

It might be that in our lifetime such activities and times will require a certain arranging—especially by parents—and so never be quite spontaneous for us. But we are responding to the situation as we find it. And what a gift—what an incomparable gift it will be for our children, or our grandchildren, if we give them even a taste of truly free time, with its fulness and its consequent joy. 

Perhaps due to our efforts now, one future Thanksgiving Day, a child will run up to us with a spontaneity we’ve never known and say, “Grandpa, Grandpa! Tell us a story of when you were young!” And holding back our tears, we will spend some moments together, where all scarcity and the passage of time are very far away.

John Cuddeback writes at LifeCraft, offering principles and encouragement for renewing life in the home. You can find his podcast, “The Intentional Household,” here.