One of the perks of retirement is leisure.

One can just sit and do nothing.

That may sound like a waste of time. Or it may sound like just plain lazy idleness.

But it’s neither of the two. It’s not being a “couch potato.”

It’s down time, a time to unwind, to relax and refresh, to give oneself a break.

In a delightful little book, “A Still Quiet Place,” replete with beautifully serene paintings of nature scenes, is a piece of sage advice by Sidney Smith, whoever he may be.

He says, “There is one piece of advice, in a life of study, which I think no one will object to; and that is, every now and then to be completely idle-to do nothing at all.”

A read of a lady who followed such advice.  In her homespun sort of way she said, “Sometimes I sits and thinks. And sometimes I just sits.”

In reading the New Testament Gospels, one finds that Jesus himself sought some solitary times and places where he could just sit or sit and think. Take this verse from The Gospel of Luke for instance, “At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place” (4:42).

It seems to me that we would all do well, active and retired, to heed the advice of Sidney Smith,  emulate the example of Jesus, and like the little lady, make some time when we “just sits and thinks” or we “just sits.”

We need such times of thoughtfulness and complete idleness.They are seasons of refreshing, beneficial to the body, mind and spirit.