Hobbies

My friend leaned across the table and said, “I’m going to find a hobby. At our age a man needs a hobby.”

I was not really sure what was significant about our age which wasn’t so aged after all.
“Really? So what are you thinking of taking up?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He paused and said, “I kind of like to cut grass.”

I smiled, “Well I hope you have a big yard.”

He frowned at me. “I mean cut grass, trim the hedges, gardening. You know what I mean.”

I do know what he meant. I come from a long line of gardening hobbyists. My mother and my grandmother both find digging in the dirt soothing. I spent two summers and more working for the grounds department of Wake Forest University. Still gardening does not suit me. I just don’t appreciate the results enough to offset the toil in the soil.

This brings a question to mind. Do we really need hobbies? I know men who play sports, sail boats, and work on those same boats. Some fish, hunt, and hike. Others, who have a more indoor bent, play music, paint, sing, work wood, or play board or computer games. My wife knits. As for me, I write.

What drives us into these pursuits? They are often solitary, taking us away from our families. They rarely produce lasting gains. Yet we spend countless hours pursuing them. Somehow they feed the soul and drive energy into the rest of our lives.

A hobby is something we pursue for the pure joy of doing it. Pure joy is a rare thing indeed. Perhaps, that is what is so energizing about hobbies. They are things we pursue on our own without the tyrant of bread or money beating our backs for results. The greatest result is the joy of the pursuit itself.

Joy, I have heard, means grace placed within us. Perhaps it is the grace to face a tough workplace. It might be the grace to deal with a home filled with sickness or strife. Perhaps it is simply the grace to keep going in this dark world. The neat thing about hobbies is that they seem to let us mimic God’s ability to place grace within our souls. These pursuits are gifts to us that take our life and make it more abundant.

There is danger as well. Like any of our gifts from God hobbies can be abused. Ultimately our Joy must come from the Lord. No hobby has the capacity to fill the bottomless void in the human soul. I think this is why so often the boat or the computer or some other avocation breaks people. The poor soul pours more and more into a hobby hoping to fill up their emptiness and neglects their family, their job, or their health. In the end something fails and divorce, poverty, or sickness is the result.

Am I out of balance? The question is simple when I think about it. If I realized tomorrow that I needed to give up my hobby for my faith or my family, would I? If my answer is no or a hesitant, “but that is what keeps me sane” then I’ve missed the point. The hobby has become my God. Thankfully I can answer unequivocally that anything that gets between me and the Lord has to go. My family is next. No activity will come between me and those I love. Any hesitation at all in my answer would mean my hobby would have to go.