This is the week of my indolence. When I was an undergraduate in Chapel Hill, the university's yearbook had a page from one social fraternity that bore a motto something like: "I did nothing yesterday. I shall do nothing today. I shall resolve only to do nothing tomorrow."

I intend to live up to those words as best I can, as long as it doesn't require too much effort.

You see, this is the week of my furlough.

If anything can be discerned over the din of the chattering class clucking over dead celebrities and a car-crash of an economy, you may have heard that daily newspapers are suffering somewhat. Happily, we here in our little corner of the universe have been excused from most of the havoc being played out in boardrooms just about everywhere else. We putter along nicely, thank you. Still, every so often we bounce across a ripple from some other place.

We are part of a much larger, mostly successful company that is doing its best to get along while other newspaper chains and media companies implode. So far, we here have done pretty well in contributing to our parent company.

Like moms saving cooking grease and dads buying Liberty Bonds during the war years, we're doing our best to help. We trim here and there, recycle where possible and keep costs low.

One of our cost-saving measures to have everyone take a week off. And this is my week.

Surprisingly, this arrives with an odd mixture of feelings -- an approaching sense of relaxation, but also an encroaching sense of frustration at all that's left undone and even guilt.

Many writers are journalists and not authors because we need to work on daily deadlines. We lack the discipline to stay after a project for weeks, months, years, because we need the more immediate gratification of seeing our work in print -- now. (At the Associated Press, the motto for years was: "the deadline is now.")

While we're on furlough, we are asked by the company not to do anything related to work. Don't write from home. Don't call. Don't check work e-mail. Heck, they might as well ask us not to scratch an itch.

After years of working on something almost every day, the thought of not doing anything, now, right now, seems foreign.

Yet I resolve to do just that.

My kids will have to take out the trash. My wife had better feed the cat, or someone will probably find claw marks on her favorite robe. The house will not be painted this week.

Somehow, this seems very wicked.

Something in the American work ethic indoctrinates us into thinking that taking time off is a bad thing. We listen to Warren Zevon singing "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," and we think there's time enough to rest in the grave.

To find permission to relax, we should consider a higher source.

No one less than Moses came down from the mountain with the Lord's instruction that we should do no work at least one day in seven. Like so many laws set down in the Pentateuch, the Sabbath makes as good a piece of advice as it does a commandment.

If you've ever spent a whole day doing nothing -- no work, no mowing the lawn, no sporting events -- you know how strong is the urge to get back to work on Monday.

Strangely, even ministers have some trouble obeying No. 4 of 10. By the very nature of their calling, most priests and pastors "work" every Sunday. The rest of the week, they feel compelled to leave no request from a congregant unanswered.

The Rev. Robert Dunham of University Presbyterian knows exactly what we're talking about. He's spoken of trying to "find my Sabbath" over the years, not often with success.

"I think it's really important that people get away some," Dunham says. "Some people are better than others about it. I'm afraid it's a case of 'Do what I say, not as I do.' I wish I were better about finding a day and sticking to it. I'd be a lot healthier."

As Immanuel Kant first noted, even the Earth itself, weary of turning against the moon and tides slows over time. Dunham notes that the word "recreation" incorporates the concept of re-creation, and hence, it hearkens to a Biblical principle. Heaven itself expects us to take some time off to reflect and honor the Creator, and also to regenerate.

"The whole world would be better off," Dunham says. "We all need time and space for Sabbath. Our lives would be more in balance."

Good thinking, that.

I intend to find that time and space this week. This week, I may do nothing at all, and I won't feel lazy.

William Elliott Warnock cannot be reached at (919) 932-8743 or by email at chnsports@nando. com. He suggests you call 932-2000 and ask for the newsroom or email chnclerk@nando.com.