Is your relationship with work undermining all the other goods in your life? If so, you might have what Jonathan Malesic calls a “demonic work ethic.”

He’s not alone in saying so. After years of academic burnout, Jonathan made a trip to the Christ in the Desert monastery, where the Benedictine monks helped him rediscover the sacred rhythms of work and rest.

Everyone from Thomas Aquinas to Annie Dillard has written about the importance of leisure, and yet, Catholic Ethicist Conor Kelly says that for most of us, our fast-paced, capitalist culture makes free time an afterthought. And we certainly don’t have federal laws like family leave or paid time off to support an ethic of leisure.

So how do we make the most of our time? What’s the best recreation for your soul? And why must we see free time not as a luxury, but a necessity for the Christian moral life?

Links from the show:

The streaming era ruined our free time. Is it too late to reclaim it?

Why we need a new theology of work