Maxim Week 21

Have a healthy, wholesome hobby. Have something where you exercise your brain just for the pure joy of it. ~Fr. Thomas Hopko

Welcome to Maxim Monday!

I like this weeks maxim. It is telling us to take time to work on something you enjoy. Websters definition of “hobby” is  1. an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.

I think that this idea of having a hobby has been completely lost in our society these days. It has been replaced by the screen, in all manner of ways. TV, especially binge watching Netflix and Hulu. Social Media, it sucks you in and eats your time away without you even noticing. Our cell phones, we communicate not via the actual phone part of it but text and snapchat and twitter and email. We’ve stopped communicating personally and intimately and we’ve stopped discovering activities that use our minds and hands for fun.

Not to say that some of those things aren’t useful and fun from time to time. I recognize that…here I am writing to you via one of those activities. But I do think we need to be careful of how much they eat up our time and take us away from mindful activities.

I do look at my blogging as a hobby. My hobby is deeply rooted in the fact that I want to spread joy, kindle joy all around! I want to share with you different ways you can also do that. I want to share the joy of the Resurrection and beauty all around!

I’ve also developed a hobby of letter-writing! What joy it brings to send love through the postal service, knowing that someone will receive something in their mailbox besides a bill makes me happy and I know it makes them happy.

Another of my hobbies is gardening. I love to dig my fingers in the dirt. I don’t make near enough time for this as I should. It is incredibly satisfying and renewing to get into the dirt.

What are some of your hobbies? How can we make time to nurture these mindful activities in our life?