And On The Seventh Day...

Was the Bible so wrong for telling us that one day out of seven should be set aside from our usual activities?

I don’t necessarily mean this from the perspective of attending a church service where you spent a good 60 minutes realizing that no matter how fat your ass gets, church pews were indeed an invention of the Devil.

What I do mean is, aside from the religious aspects of “Sunday,” what are/were the social benefits that this special day used to deliver to us in regard to our human development and societal cohesiveness?

I remember when I grew up in my small northern hometown. Save but for a few essentials… the police, hospitals… motels, one or two gas stations and restaurants (the majority were closed)… it would be quiet as a mouse downtown.

Ho hum… tap, tap, tap… what to do, what to do?

Might as well dive back under the blankets and sleep until Monday, because this day is just useless, right?

Well, that’s not the way I remember it.

I do remember tip-toeing around the house in the mornings, hoping, praying…”Please, dear God, let my Mom and Dad sleep in so we don’t have to go to church… pleeeeease!”

It’s amazing how quietly four kids can play together sometimes. Whoever woulda thunk it?

It rarely worked… but, it worked just enough times to keep us hoping. (I wonder if my parents let it work just enough times a year to ensure they would continue to receive blissfully quiet Sunday mornings… hmmmm…. hmmmm!)

Yeah, going to church sucked.

But, that was the price we had to pay for what was often an extremely cool day!

After church, Sunday was filled with activities.

It was the day that everyone was available.

It was a day for family and friends.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of Sundays. The picnics at the beach, the softball games where kids and their dads played side by side, pond hockey at a family friend’s farm…

The first time I discovered exactly how proficient my father was at gutter language was on a Sunday… as he was apparently trying to talk his Toyota Landcruiser off the rock it had gotten hung up on in the middle of a creek during a typical Sunday afternoon adventure.

Sunday meals were also special. Everyone seemed to make it special, whether church-goers or not. I was a day when it was easy to do something special.

But, we gave it all away.

We gave it away so Wal-Mart could deliver us cheap socks, seven days a week.

One wonders how many people bought cheap socks before Wal-Mart opened seven days a week? I don’t remember lots of barefoot people, able only to scrounge a barrel and suspenders to present themselves to the world.

Today’s Sundays involve the son working at the 24 hour gas station from eight to four, the daughter running to her four hour afternoon shift at the mall’s clothing store, and the wife working her evening shift at the neighbourhood pub until midnight – getting ogled and hit on by countless drunks who drink the day away because, well, all of their family and friends are busy like everyone else’s – busy making Sunday just “another day.”

I believe Sundays used to provide an enormous benefit to our psychological wellbeing, both as individuals and as a society.

It was a day that we were reminded there were things to life other than work and money.

It was a day that honoured not only God, but also family and friends.

Sundays helped us create a feeling of “community.”

I don’t go to church anymore, save but for weddings and funerals, I haven’t been to church in over 17 years.

But, the older I get, and the more I watch as society crumbles all around us… the more I realize how Sundays played an important role in keeping us human.