The Pastor's Day Off

How can a pastor spend his day off? A friend of mine who pastors in a large city and whose wife works a full-time job recently posed that question to me. Here's what I told him:

• Read. I'm talking pleasure reading here. I read the Harry Potter series last year and loved it. I'm reading Larry Bird and Magic Johnson's book, When the Game was Ours, right now. The last book I finished was Malcolm Gladwell's latest, What the Dog Saw. Find something you like to read and enjoy.
• Explore. OK, so I'm talking like a suburbanite right now, but there have got to be places in the city that you haven't seen/explored yet. I'm not a big museum person, but I don't know if I'd be able to live in ___ and not be exposed to some of those places. Then again, you might want to wait for Saturdays to do that with your wife--totally understandable. But maybe there are other places you want to explore.
• Eat. Not, like, incessantly. I'm thinking of meeting your wife for her lunch break. Not sure what her situation is, but maybe you could pack a lunch and take it to her workroom during her break. Even if it's only half an hour, it'll be worth it.
• Visit. See if there are other pastors who take the same day off as well. Schedule a coffee with them and pray for one another--no church business allowed!
• Catch up. Don't feel guilty for reading a backlog of RSS feeds from the week. I'm constantly behind in that area. Use some of your day off to play catch-up.
• Exercise. Find something you enjoy doing and do it.
• Write. Journal about anything and everything: what happened over the weekend, the date you and your wife went on, a memory from when you were a kid. Write, write, write. One day your kids will thank you that you did.

What would you add to the list?

A Pilgrim's Prayer

LORD OF THE CLOUD AND FIRE,
I am a stranger, with a stranger's indifference;
My hands hold a pilgrim's staff,
My march is Zionward,
My eyes are toward the coming of the Lord,
My heart is in thy hands without reserve.

From "Journeying On," in The Valley of Vision.