Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy. <\/i><\/p>\n
\u2014Ezek. 16:49<\/i><\/p>\n
3046<\/b> Spending Statistics<\/b><\/p>\n
Americans spend $146 billion for recreation in 1976, itemized as follows:<\/p>\n
Equipment $77 billion<\/p>\n
Travels $55 billion<\/p>\n
Foreign Travels $11 billion<\/p>\n
Cottages & Lots $3 billion<\/p>\n
This figure soared to $160 billion in 1977. Leisure-time expenditures can be expected to double every 8\u20139 years. This U.S. phenomenon has been sparked by longer paid vacation, more three-day weekends, and rising family incomes. <\/p>\n
3047<\/b> The Four-Day Work Week<\/b><\/p>\n
According to Time<\/i>, some 500 U.S. business and industrial firms have been experimenting with a four-day work week. For ten weeks during the summer, the Chicago-based Zenith Life Insurance Co. tried a four-day, 35-hour routine, with half of its 33 employees working Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., the other half Tuesday through Friday. Now Zenith has pronounced the plan a startling success and made the arrangement permanent. Recruiting is easier, absenteeism reduced, overtime pay decreased and employee morale vastly improved. <\/p>\n
The four-day plan has yielded unusual payoffs in other areas. For the past two months, the Pontiac, Mich., 150-man police department has been on a four-day week of ten-hour days. Response time on emergency calls is down, arrests have increased by 9%, and absenteeism has been cut by 16%. The ten-hour days allow for overlapping shifts, thus concentrating police coverage during high-crime hours. <\/p>\n
If four-day schedules become a national routine, presumably various three-day \u201cweekends\u201d will have to be staggered throughout the week to ease pressure on already overburdened recreational facilities. In an increasingly secularized society, what began as the Sabbath will be turning into Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday \u201cweekends.\u201d<\/p>\n
3048<\/b> Vacation Bible Schools Shortened<\/b><\/p>\n
U. S. churchgoers are so busy with their leisure that Vacation Bible Schools find it ever more difficult to recruit workers for the full two-week stint. Because of this, Gospel Light Publications is begrudgingly adding to its line a five-day curriculum, which it says is the first ever offered. \u201cFrankly,\u201d said an official, \u201cwe are heavily in favor of the ten-day school, but unmistakable trends show that our new five-day course will help many churches with their problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Christianity Today<\/i><\/p>\n
3049<\/b> \u201cTake It Easy\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
Dr. Margaret Mead, distinguished anthropologist and author, made a very interesting observation in an address not long ago. She pointed out that for a long time it was the universal custom to say on parting: \u201cGood-bye,\u201d which is a shortened form of \u201cGod be with you.\u201d Today it is quite common instead to say: \u201cTake it easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Pulpit Digest<\/i><\/p>\n
3050<\/b> Ocean Liner\u2019s Leisurely Pace<\/b><\/p>\n
The great transatlantic liner Ile de France<\/i> was dedicated to leisurely comfort and luxurious cuisine rather than speed. Ile de France<\/i> fans are fond of telling about the distinguished old gentleman who was dining elegantly when the Mauretania<\/i> slammed past, intent upon breaking the record for the Atlantic crossing. <\/p>\n
A number of passengers left the dining room to watch the great British ship pass, but the old gentleman went on eating leisurely until a personal acquaintance aboard the Mauretania<\/i> cabled saying, \u201cDO YOU WANT A TOW?\u201d The old gourmet scribbled his reply: \u201cNO THANK YOU. WHAT\u2019S YOUR HURRY? ARE YOU STARVING?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Ile de France<\/i><\/p>\n
3051<\/b> Department of Leisure<\/b><\/p>\n
Social scientists tell us that a \u201cworkless world\u201d is just around the corner. Life in the world of tomorrow is pictured as having much leisure in it. Says Professor P. E. Vandall of the University of Windsor, \u201cThe 20-hour week is only 10 years away.\u201d The Southern California Research Council predicts that, by 1985, the typical American will have to work only six months a year to maintain his present standard of living. <\/p>\n
R. F. Norden, in his book entitled The New Leisure<\/i>, says, \u201cSome social scientists forsee the time, perhaps in the next 25 or even 10 years, when people constituting 2 percent of our population can do the necessary work to provide food and consumer goods for the remaining 98 percent; then state governments will establish departments of leisure to balance departments of labor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Christian Victory<\/i><\/p>\n
3052<\/b> \u201cFooling Around\u201d With Hobbies<\/b><\/p>\n
The young applicant for a position as junior accountant clerk was being interviewed. When the subject of outside interests arose, the youth loftily said, \u201cMy avocation is color photography.\u201d The personnel manager laid down his pen. \u201cYoung man,\u201d he said steadily, \u201cvice presidents have avocations. Department heads have hobbies. What you\u2019re doing is fooling around.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Wall Street Journal<\/i><\/p>\n
3053<\/b> Sports In The U. S. <\/b><\/p>\n
A survey by the A. C. Nielsen Co. shows that top in the list of popular sports in the U.S. is swimming. Some 103 million people regularly swim. Other sports in the top five listing are: bicycling, fishing, camping and bowling. <\/p>\n
Americans in a year bought almost 700,000 boats and 470,000 outboard motors. Total value: $2.3 billion. Boating adds up to a $5.3-billion-a-year business, including accessories and fees. <\/p>\n
About 13 million people tried waterskiing at least once in 1976 and spent 100 million dollars in the process. <\/p>\n
Some 1 million scuba divers spent $500 each for gears and 3 million snorkeling people spent about $35 each for equipment. <\/p>\n
Sport fishing has an estimated 55 million participants. The sale of all fishing equipments annually went over 500 million dollars. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, visitors to national parks rose to 262 million yearly\u2014a gain of almost 100% during the past decade. <\/p>\n
3054<\/b> Sports Continued<\/b><\/p>\n
One out of every five Americans is a steady customer at the local bowling alley; one out of 20 play tennis or golf. And when they are not playing, Americans are watching it. Then there is TV. On a typical weekend, New York TV stations offer six baseball games, a soccer game, two horse races, a golf tournament, an auto race, and a surfing competition. As for the papers, on Sunday, the Los Angeles Times<\/i> usually allots 48 columns to sports compared with 14 to music, 13 to theater, eleven to movies, seven to art. <\/p>\n
With that kind of exposure, sports has become big business. Today the payroll of an average pro football team is $1,000,000 a season. <\/p>\n
\u2014Time<\/i><\/p>\n
3055<\/b> Gyms Along Highways<\/b><\/p>\n
West Germany now has a chain of drive-in mini-gymnasiums. Established by the Automobilclub von Deutschland, the Trimmstationen are designed to help motorists keep fit on long trips. Some 20 gyms are scattered along the autobahn system, with 30 more planned for next year. <\/p>\n
\u2014Garden City, N. Y., Newsday<\/i><\/p>\n
3056<\/b> Football Fans: Old vs. New<\/b><\/p>\n
In these days when College football stadiums seat 90,000 or more spectators, it is interesting to note the comment made once by Andrew W. White, co-founder of Cornell University and its first president. Asked for permission to send the Cornell squad to Ann Arbor for a game, he replied indignantly: \u201cI will not permit thirty men to travel four hundred miles to agitate a bag of wind.\u201d<\/p>\n
3057<\/b> Football Not Action Sport<\/b><\/p>\n
Actually, football contains less action than most other sports. During an average college game, the ball is in motion only 20% of the time. The other 80% are taken up by huddles, formations, and other things. <\/p>\n
3058<\/b> The Hobby Boom<\/b><\/p>\n
On hobbies, the Hobby Industry of America figures that consumers spend nearly 1.7 billion dollars on equipment and supplies in 1976\u2014an increase of 65% from 1970. Due to a shorter workweek, a sophisticated youth market, earlier retirements and a general desire among Americans to be creative, the boom has begun. Big stores have taken hobby goods out of toy sections and put them in special departments. <\/p>\n
3059<\/b> Complete Coin Collection<\/b><\/p>\n
Coin collectors must envy Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr., of Baltimore. He owns the only complete collection of U. S. coins in existence. Mr. Eliasberg\u2019s collection contains one of every coin minted for circulation since 1792, when the first mint was authorized. <\/p>\n
The value of his collection has never been announced. But the collector admits buying a single scarce penny for $2,500. The collection is secured in six wooden trunks in a vault of the Baltimore National Bank. Each coin is in a custom-tailored niche, lying between layers of clear plastic. The collection is taken out only to be placed on exhibit. <\/p>\n
3060<\/b> Collecting Tattoed Skins<\/b><\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the most freakish hobby I ever heard of. Imagine a man collecting the skins of tattoed people? He was Doctor Fukushi, a lecturer at the Tokyo Imperial University. <\/p>\n
The doctor scored a triumph when he discovered a fifty-seven-year-old barber who was entirely tattoed. Every square inch of that man\u2019s body bore some sort of ornamental design, except his face. As soon as the Doctor heard of this curiosity he rushed to see the man and obtained the barber\u2019s promise to bequeath him his skin. <\/p>\n
Doctor Fukushi had been collecting tattoed skins for twenty-six years. He had in his possession some mighty choice specimens, and no less than eighteen people had promised to bequeath their epidermis to him in their wills. <\/p>\n
3061<\/b> On Chess Games<\/b><\/p>\n
Chess is played through the mail by some 10,000 Americans ranging in age from ten to 85, few of whom ever meet their opponents in person. While these individuals seldom play over a dozen games simultaneously, one man in Auburn, California, usually carries on 500 at a time. <\/p>\n
Incidentally, since the first literature on chess appeared about seven centuries ago, more books and articles have been written on this subject than on any other game. Several vast collections of these works have been accumulated, the largest being the John G. White Collection in the Cleveland Public Library. It contains nearly 50,000 books, magazines, pamphlets and clippings dealing with chess. <\/p>\n
\u2014Freling Foster<\/p>\n
3062<\/b> Cardinal Plays With Fountains<\/b><\/p>\n
After losing his bid to become pope, 41-year-old Cardinal Ippolito d\u2019Este retired in 1550 to Trivoli, Italy, and spent his time playing with his so-called \u201ctoys\u201d\u2014which in his case were fountains; scores of them. <\/p>\n
The cardinal\u2019s most striking water \u201ctoy\u201d at the Villa d\u2019Este is the Organ Fountain. Designed to play an entire motet based on the force of air driven by water through the pipes, the Organ Fountain revolved in various directions. The mechanism for the music doesn\u2019t work today\u2014and its secret unfortunately has been lost. At approximately noon almost every day a spectacular rainbow forms over the Organ Fountain\u2019s spray. <\/p>\n
\u2014Prairie Overcomer<\/i><\/p>\n
3063<\/b> Famous Hair Collection<\/b><\/p>\n
The Lamar Library of the University of Texas in Austin owns one of the few collections of locks of hair of famous persons. The English poet Leigh Hunt started it as a hobby in the 19th century and the Lamar Library secured it. The collection includes locks from the heads of Napoleon, John Milton, Elizabeth Browning, Edgar Allan Poe and George Washington. <\/p>\n
3064<\/b> 500 Outlines of John 3:16<\/b><\/p>\n
Americans are incurable hobbyists. Their collections run the gamut from acorns to zippers, and in between you\u2019ll find a preacher with 500 different sermon outlines from John 3:16. I can even introduce you to a deacon who saves annual reports from the churches he visits every summer. Dick Fulton seldom leaves a service without a report booklet under his arm. He can uncover a copy even if the head usher hasn\u2019t seen one around for five months. <\/p>\n
\u2014David S. McCarthy<\/p>\n
3065<\/b> Epigram On Leisure<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2022 The real problem of your leisure time is how to keep other people from using it. <\/p>\n
\u2014E. C. Mckenzie<\/p>\n
\u2022 Leisure time is when the wife and kids can\u2019t find you. <\/p>\n
\u2014Bits & Pieces<\/i><\/p>\n
See also:<\/b> Money ; Pleasure ; Time ; Travel. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy. \u2014Ezek. 16:49 3046 Spending Statistics Americans spend $146 billion for recreation in 1976, itemized as follows: Equipment $77 billion Travels $55 … Continue reading “LEISURE”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}