a day of rest (part one)

I am not a sabbatarian.  I don't believe there should be a list of do's and don'ts prescribed from the pulpit, religious literature, or other sources about what should or should not be done on Sunday, commonly referred to as the "Christian Sabbath".  Our Lord Jesus spent a significant amount of time sharply rebuking the Pharisees for their practice of adding hundreds of their own rules to what God had already prescribed in the Mosaic Law.

That said, I do believe that each family can and should prayerfully decide how they will observe the weekly day of rest God has given to us.  God has designed our bodies to require one day of rest out of seven, and He meant for us to enjoy that rest, not look at the day as a drudgery.

My dad had a way of making Sunday special and enjoyable.  There were definitely things we were not allowed to do, but the focus was on all the really cool things we could do, that we did not normally do any other day of the week.  Here are some of the things I remember:

• Playing Scrabble using Bible words.  In this version of the game, you are allowed to use proper names, such as Hannah or Samson.  When you lay your tiles down, you say one sentence about the word you are playing.
• Listening to Dad read missionary stories aloud.  We got to know William Carey, Hudson Taylor, George Muller, and many others.
• Taking a walk in the woods.  Not a long hike, but a nice, brisk walk, with apples to munch along the way.  And we learned what the word "biodegradable" meant when Dad taught us to toss the cores into the bushes "for the birds and the rabbits and the field mice".
• Relaxing.  Once the Sunday dishes were done, we were free to lie in the hammock, wander through the woods on our own, curl up on the porch with a book, draw, or partake in some other quiet, reflective activity.  No homework, no house chores, no piano practice (unless we wanted to play hymns), etc.

Patricia M. St. John, author of Star of Light, Treasures of the Snow, Rainbow Garden, and other wonderful Christian children's books, recalled the joyous delight Sundays were in her own childhood:

"...the service being over, we belted for home in high spirits, for the rest of Sunday was the most exciting day of the week.  There was a special pudding and sweets after lunch, and, for the little ones, tiny biscuits shaped like letters (being Sunday, you had to make a text with them), and special bricks and modelling clay (being Sunday, you had to build a recognizable Bible story with them).

"For the older ones, there were missionary books, and how my mother, in her busy life, managed to write to so many missionaries and persuade them to produce letters, postcards, photographs, etc., is still a mystery to me; but there was always a pile of material for our fascinating scrap books....  The evenings were spent around the piano singing those old hymns then beloved of little children, with their bright imagery of blue skies, shepherd and lambs, or marching round the table with a percussion band to the strains of "Onward Christian Soldiers" or some such military theme.  In winter we gathered around the fire and my mother would read us a "Sunday book," and Sunday books in those days were not very cheerful.  They were nearly all about poor orphans who lived in slums and died making beautiful speeches pages long.  My mother would cry and we would shout with laughter at her (we were not nice children) and we would all enjoy ourselves immensely."

(excerpt from An Ordinary Woman's Extraordinary Faith: The Autobiography of Patricia St. John)

In our house, we've changed the definition of "Sunday book" to include missionary stories and biographies, and Christian children's fiction.  Sometimes we have gone for walks or on picnics, but mostly we try to stick close to home and rest.  Those who are too young to stay awake during the evening service without a nap usually go to bed, sometimes with Dad--a special treat that encourages sleep without too much fuss.  We try to keep meals simple enough that there is at least an hour after clean-up before we all have to get ready to go again, and this hour is kept sacred for relative quiet, each with his/her own thoughts and quiet activity.

We've tried to keep chores to a minimum, but sometimes there's an "ox in the ditch" that we need to care for: plumbing emergencies (waking up to no water), bedding to wash (someone wet their bed or was sick in the night), pigs loose in the yard and needing a sturdier cage, a car that wouldn't go, etc.  Once I spent a weekend goat- and chicken-sitting for friends in Texas, and had to spend a good half hour on a Sunday morning rounding up a couple dozen chickens that had escaped.

There are a few things we need to change in our house, since Sunday mornings tend to be a bit more harried than I'd like.  Here's the list of things I'm planning to amend for next week:

• Buy boxed cereal for Sunday breakfast.  Those of you who know my "whole foods militarism" will perhaps understand how desperate I am for peaceful Sunday mornings, for me to resort to such measures.  I assure you, those boxes of non-nutrition will be strictly reserved for Sundays only, and only when I haven't had time to bake granola that week.  (Side note: while at Maranatha a couple of weeks ago, I did buy cereal for those mornings when camp was not in session, and we had to feed ourselves.  "RICE KRISPIES!!!" Elizabeth exclaimed.  "I haven't had Rice Krispies in so long!")
• Have young boys' clothes better organized so that when the older boys help on Sunday mornings, it's easier for them to tell whose clothes are whose.
• Make sure everyone knows where their Bibles and Sunday school worksheets are.
• Have lunch meat, cheese, and other sandwich fixings already bought/prepared so that nothing has to be made on Sunday.  We could also use paper plates, thus cutting down on clean-up time, as well.  The traditional full-course Sunday dinner is only restful for those who don't have to cook or clean up.
• Put everybody to bed at 7:30 instead of 8:00 on Saturday night.  People who think they are too old for such an early bed time can read a book.  This will mean starting baths/showers at six, which will mean having supper no later than five, which I'm not always able to manage.  But it's better than trying to wrestle sleepy children out of bed. 
• Be organized enough for me actually to eat breakfast on Sunday morning, instead of rushing all over creation trying to do a zillion things. 

Next week, I hope to be able to say I made progress.  :)