Thoughts on Sunday

Some folks have trouble with Sundays. People have told me that Sundays, for them, are a “downer” – the end of the weekend’s freedom, a lull in their lives when they have to come face to face with the fact that Monday morning is around the corner. Where I live, many people who are determined not to let Sunday get them down put the boat in the bay, toss out the crab pots, or go to their kid’s softball tourney. French mathematician Pascal wisely said that all of our activity is meant to distract us from a far more important matter: the condition of the soul. Oregon is right behind Washington when it comes to the lowest church attendance in the nation, so maybe Pascal was onto something.

My Sundays start when my husband and I wake up, stretch, say good morning and consider getting out of bed. We’re up at 6 a.m. weekdays, but on Saturdays and Sundays we “sleep in” until 7:30 unless the cat comes to our bedroom door and won’t go away. My husband and I pull on our sweats, turn on the coffee, and sit around in the living room, sometimes watching the news but more often not. If I’m not leading a class at church, we’ll have a leisurely breakfast together. He is the breakfast cook: country scramble, grits, eggs, sausage, omelets, waffles – as long as he’s cooking, I’m content to be the dish washer. After breakfast, he’ll shower while I do the dishes, then it’s my turn. We leave for church a little earlier nowadays to pick up our 90-year-old friend Lila. She and Ed chat in the front seat while I look at the scenery. I find houses in the woods along the highway I never knew were there. Being a passenger changes your point of view.

Part of making peace with Sundays in our marriage has been realizing the very different places my husband and I come from. He was raised on a cattle ranch in Idaho, and on the ranch every day was a “work day.” He still had to milk the cows on Sunday, and check the fence line, and help with the household chores. Although he was baptized in the Church of the Latter Day Saints as a child, church in any form was not a regular part of his childhood. For me, it was the exact opposite. My mother’s father was a preacher for small Assembly of God churches all the time I knew him, and church was always a part of my family life. My mother and stepfather were married in a Southern Baptist church when I was five years old; I was baptized in the “dunk tank” at the front and vividly remember dinner on the grounds when folks shared a meal after church, the food piled on sheets of plywood laid over sawhorses and covered with bed sheets. In junior high school, our family – mom, dad, my brother and baby sister – began attending a charismatic nondenominational fellowship where we sang rousing scripture-based choruses and raised our hands in worship. Always, for me, Sunday was about church, about taking time to pause and be thankful and to enjoy Christian fellowship. Sunday afternoons were about rest and leisure or visiting with relatives. There weren’t any chores that couldn’t wait until Monday.

Once I understood that my husband and I were coming from different traditions, I was able to understand why he has a hard time now doing nothing on Sundays. There’s the yard to mow (what he’s doing today, as I write this) or the house to maintain. Sometimes he does rest; he calls it “puttering” and he’s usually doing something creative in his workshop. But, perhaps in concession to our marriage, attending worship is also a part of our Sundays. When we first met, he said he would go to church on “special occasions.” Now, every Sunday is a special occasion because we go to church together. After lunch, we go our separate ways – he to his tasks to be done, and me to my letters to answer, books to read, or naps that need to be taken. Except for the roar of the lawnmower, Sunday afternoons are peaceful at our house.

Later today, we are going to have dinner with old friends. I met Anne when I moved to Waldport and became a tenant in her guesthouse, the Little Barn. She and her partner have invited us to dinner and we’re looking forward to seeing them again. We’ll take our sketches for the new house and see what they think. They did a huge remodel on their home a few years ago. Dinner, followed by coffee and good conversation, makes for a swell ending to a Sunday.

Lynne M. Baab in her book on sabbath keeping as a spiritual discipline writes: “The sabbath teaches us grace because it connects us experientially to the basic truth that nothing we do will earn God’s love. As long as we are working hard, using our gifts to serve others, experiencing joy in our work along with the toil, we are always in danger of believing that our actions trigger God’s love for us. Only in stopping, really stopping, do we teach our hearts and souls that we are loved apart from what we do.” (17-18) Baab learned about keeping the Sabbath experientially herself; she and her family lived in Israel and Iran where the entire culture shut down to observe the Islamic and Jewish holy days. When the buses stopped running and the shops closed, a blessed quiet permeated life. The focus shifted from “out there” to “in here” as the distractions of modern city dwelling were silenced. When we stop doing, we are free to just be. God gets us in our natural state and loves us just the same. What a joyful revelation!

I haven’t instituted an official sabbath for myself, although I’ve considered it. I think there is much to be gained by stopping my regular workday activities and concentrating on rest and refreshment, fellowship with friends and family. A sense of thankfulness seems right, too. God worked for six days, saw everything was good, and rested. I’m thankful He set the precedent.