Take it easy and no play : all work makes Jack and Jane dull disciples.

A SUNNY DAY, A SIDEWALK CAFE, A BOWL OF SALSA AND a basket of chips in front of me: What could be more inviting? Yet I found myself annoyed. It was one o'clock in the afternoon in the middle of the week, a workday by every measure. I should be at my desk, producing something, earning my daily bread. I ought to be doing something useful.

Instead I was waiting on a friend who was predictably late. She had called only this morning, excitedly informing me that she was in town just for the day, and wouldn't it be wonderful to get together for lunch? Sure, I thought, it would be great to see a friend. Sure, lunch is something I regularly like to eat. This sounded suspiciously like a good idea.

But of course it wasn't. I had deadlines. I had plans for cafe and eating too many chips. The ratio of calories to nutritional value in a basket of tortilla chips is something I don't even want to think about. Meanwhile my work was languishing on my desk; I have yet to find a way to get paid for doing nothing.

Am I a workaholic? Do I believe that my time is of no value if I do not produce something saleable with it? Have I attached dollar signs to my days that I now feel compelled to live up to? A livelihood is a serious thing, after all. Having a job and being responsible is what adulthood is all about. Or have I missed something?

The waiter was unquestionably gracious. He smiled each time he came by to refresh my drink and to ask if I needed more chips. "No one in the United States of America needs more chips," I assured him. "But I can always use the conversation." The banter, I had to admit, was fun. Being outside on a spectacularly pleasant day instead of hunched over a keyboard was not a bad thing. Was there a value I could assign to fresh air? And getting some vitamin D from the sun, while not exactly canceling the empty calories I was inhaling from the basket, had to be worth something.

My guilt about playing hooky gradually diminished. Some tourists stopped at my table and asked for directions. I admired their comfortable clothing, and they admitted they were just back from a cruise. It hadn't been as agreeable as their last cruise; now that had been a vacation! After they moved on down the street, I realized I was in awe of their state of relaxation. They weren't a bit apologetic about not working or about their vacation habit. I tried to remember what I did on my last vacation. Then I tried to recall when I might have last taken time off. Was it this millennium or the last?

ABOUT TWO DECADES AGO, I WENT ON RETREAT BECAUSE

I felt my spiritual life needed work. I was assigned to a spiritual director who instructed me to do nothing for 10 minutes. I stared at her. "But that's too easy," I said. "Try it," she advised. So I did. And I couldn't.

Doing nothing proved to be the hardest thing to do. I sat in a chair and looked at my hands, immediately becoming aware of a cuticle that needed trimming. But I wasn't supposed to do anything, so I let it go. Pretty soon I was reading the signage about stripping the beds at the end of the retreat. I looked away. No reading. I scratched my arm and thought idly about whether I should do something about that itch. Scratch that thought. Should I be praying? No. Nothing means nothing. And on and on for the longest 10 minutes of my life.

What I learned is that packing activities into time is something I've been taught to do. Reflection, contemplation, and just plain sitting are not valued exercises, since I have nothing to show for myself at the end of such time. Being a human being--which is to say, just being--isn't enough, I've been told. I have to justify my existence, earn my keep, accomplish something.

The better we've learned these lessons, the harder it is to simply rest and be at peace. I reported my failure to the spiritual director the following day. "No matter how I tried, I kept attempting to make use of that 10 minutes," I confessed. She nodded. "Perhaps then your spiritual life doesn't need work. Maybe it needs play."

BY THE TIME MY FRIEND ARRIVED IN SPARKLY SANDALS and wearing a ridiculous hat, my mind was made up. I intended to play hooky more often. I was going to get some sparkle of my own. I was in dire need of a hat that could be described as ridiculous. I needed to be less efficient, more playful. What I really needed, maybe, was a vacation.

"Come away and rest awhile," Jesus once said to his disciples. They had been out there doing what disciples are supposed to do: preaching, curing the sick, casting out demons. These are all vital and necessary occupations and someone needs to be about them. But Jesus also knew how exhausting it could be to toss a demon. What a good disciple needs, on a regular basis, is a little R&R. That's why God invented the Sabbath, the day of rest, intended as an echo of the divine balance of work and cessation. Because there's no joy in life if you just keep at it, making a living and paying the bills. As Jesus might have said, the bills you will always have with you. Come and rest awhile.

When you think about it, there are only 10 things God felt serious enough about to make commandments out of them. Murder and stealing and lying and adultery are among them, all of which are mighty ponderous matters. And among those really heavy issues is taking a day off on a regular basis. God put that up there as one of the Big Ten because it's just that important. People need to rest, they need to step back from work and all the other have-tos that define human existence. What that suggests is that God doesn't want us to be defined solely on the basis of what we produce. Our value is not simply in what we do but in who we are. We are "beings." We exist.

AS CHRISTIANS, WE AFFIRM SOMETHING CALLED THE SANCTITY of life. Life is sacred because it's from God, and God is holy. That means life has value even if it doesn't do a blessed thing that's productive.

We use this measure when we speak of the value of the unborn child, the frail elderly, the infirm, the mentally incompetent, the person behind bars. They may not add one dollar to the economy but that doesn't matter. We don't measure the worth of human beings by what they've done or failed to do. Their very existence has its source in God, which makes their being something we can't dismiss, judge, or tamper with.

If productivity were assumed to be the only value, then lots of people could be dispensed with. I've worked in offices where fewer than half of the folks who drew paychecks were technically productive. If we're going to cull the herd on the basis of who earns the right to be here, let's not stop at eliminating the weak, the poor, the old, and the bad. There are so many more categories to choose from: the slackers, the foolish, the complainers, the rude. Each of us might certainly produce a list of the top 10 categories of people we'd like to see vanish from the face of the earth. If half of us got our wish, then likely none of us would be here.

If, on the other hand, we accept the premise that life is sacred because of its source and not because of its end, then we have to make room for everyone. And among the lives we have to learn to welcome and value are our own--even when we don't produce anything that can be marketed, lived in, worn, eaten, or sold. But this can be a real challenge for those of us who don't consider an evening to be a success unless we've simultaneously washed and folded the laundry, darned the socks, and baked something for the get-together tomorrow.

SOMETIMES THE HOLIEST THING WE CAN DO IS SIT FOR 20 minutes after supper and watch the sunset from the back porch. Or take a moment to glance out the window at the rain running in rivulets along the glass, following one stream from the top of the pane to the bottom. Maybe the most useful thing we can do is to sit with someone we love for a quarter of an hour not saying a word. Or visit someone in a nursing home who won't remember we've been there. Sometimes it's good to take a long lunch with a pal and celebrate friendship. Even empty calories can be good for the soul.

ALICE CAMILLE, writer of the series "Exploring the Sunday Readings" (Twenty-Third Publications) and co-writer of the homily service "Prepare the Word" (TrueQuest Communications).