A Brand New Day, Part 1

                When did Sunday stop being a day of rest?  We used to attend a church that had small group meetings in the late afternoon and early evenings. They called it fellowship, I called it more church. Except we had to also bring food enough for fifteen people.

                On a typical Sunday we would get up, bathe, go to church, go to lunch, get home, get ready for the small group meeting (which meant cooking something), go to the small group meeting and finally get back home just in time to go to bed.

                We don’t go to that church anymore. Not because of the hectic Sundays it created; it was because they started telling us how to vote and the junior minister told the congregation that I, specifically, was just going through the motions and did not really have Christ in my heart.  But that is a rant for another day…

                Needless to say we ran from that political cult.  Rest assured it did not start that way, but soured slowly. Unlike frogs in boiling water, I realized what was happening and wanted out. Not-so-oddly my wife and I came to the same decision about the same time. Mine was after the minister said what he said about me. My wife came home from their Wednesday service three days after the insult and said, “We’re not going to that church anymore.”

                “Well, you’ve just save us a BIG argument next Sunday morning…” I said. We found a much better and more Christian church.  But that is another rant for another day…

                This should have freed-up our Sunday afternoons and evenings. But like any hole it got filled. At that time both of us work on most Saturdays, so Sunday meant catching up the shopping and errands we couldn’t do during the week.

                Then we had the baby. Our weekends are back to being filled again. One of us shops while the baby naps (afternoon) or sleeps (evenings). As she gets older … who knows what the future holds? When she gets too old for a nap (foolish child – naps are precious!), she’ll be old enough to help with the chores; or at least self-entertain so WE can get the chores done!

                But it’s not just us – the lack of time is pandemic.  Since Sunday has morphed into a Day-We-Get-Done-Things-We-Can’t-Get-Done-the-Rest-of-the-Week day, we need another day of rest, recuperation, relaxation and reflection. 

                We cannot use an existing day. The weekdays are for working – the days for which we need a day of rest. Saturday is out.  That’s the day for which we need a day of recuperation. And some of us work on Saturdays, too.

                We need a brand new day. A true day of rest. A day in which no work is done.  A day in which we do not force others to work.

                The day would take some preparation – you would have to buy your food or fill up your gas tank the day before. Remember, we do not force others to work. Eating out? No, you’d force some waiter/waitress and a cook to work on your day of rest. It would be a day to grill outside, or cook together as a family at home. Or cook a frozen pizza and sit in your favorite chair and catch up on all those recorded TV shows you never get around to watching.

                Camp out. Stay inside. Lay a blanket on the grass and read a book. Stay home and play with your child. Relax.  Mellow. Chill.

                “Don’t give me that hippie crap,” you snarl, “I’ve got trains to catch and bills to pay!” 

                Our new day of rest will take some time.  It will take the changing of mind-sets. We may not see it in our lifetimes; this will be for the benefit of future generations. But we can begin now. If not one day a week, maybe one day per season, or one day per month. C’mon, if we can add an extra day every four years, we can add more! (I know, I know, we have leap day because of the rotation of the earth is slightly more than 24 hours; but it just proves we can add days to our calendar. As quoted in the Yardbirds song “Glimpse”: “time is just a human limit, which with one glimpse, can overcome.”  There I go with that hippie crap again…)

                My next few blogs will discuss how we can make room in the calendar for the day, names for the day and some logistical problems with our day.

                But our brand new day starts now!

 
Next: Finding the time …