What To Do On Sundays?

What do you do on Sundays? My grandmother told me that when she was a child she was allowed to hold her dolly on her lap but not to play with it. On Sundays when she was a young mother of four she prepared a roaster pan full of the Sunday dinner on Saturday night so all she had to do was light a fire under it early Sunday morning and by the time they got home from church it would be ready to eat. I’m not sure what she did about washing the dishes. Sunday school and church for everyone, then home to dine, rest and read the Bible. A day of quiet reflection. Are there some who still observe the Sabbath like that? 

Things have changed today but I think I have found a good way to spend Sunday, especially if it’s spent alone. Try to think things out. Today we had a hymn sing in the Garden Room here at The Willows. After church and a delicious noon meal in the dining room, singing hymns seemed to cap off my Sunday worship. At home I did a little reading and then turned on the TV to watch “60 Minutes.” It featured a segment about a coal mining disaster. Then another about homeless families and children who feel the shame of being homeless and the pain of seeing their parents suffer. After it was over I felt a cloud of sorrow settling over my day.

I got to thinking then. This human experiment of life on earth leaves a lot to be improved upon. This man made out of the dust has come a long way, but he has an even longer way to go. I think it would be profitable to keep the first chapter of Genesis and the first three verses of the second as a “let’s start from the beginning” contemplation of life.   

In Genesis I the light was called Day and the dark was called Night. Have you ever sat down and tried to think the first chapter of Genesis through? I’ve often wondered if the whole secret of life could be packed into that one statement. We could add the phrase from the book of Revelation in our considerations too. You know, the one that says, speaking of the kingdom of heaven, “...there shall be no night there.” 

The Night and Day idea seems to indicate that life is in the way we see it. And how can we see it better? With more light, of course. Seeing also requires intelligence, perception, facts. If that first record of creation in the Bible is to be believed then all we need to see things as “very good,” the way God sees them, is to be what the greatest teachers of the world tell us we are, children of light. 

Really, can’t you or I or anyone do better at thinking up a better man than the one we see? Imagine the kind of man who is not sentenced to death the minute he is born. Imagine one who is complete, who doesn’t need to procreate because his own Creator does that job. Imagine not needing to grub in the dirt or constantly feed appetites of one sort or another. Imagine the kind of man-woman who does not get old and feeble, one who is uniquely and individually beautiful, one who is talented, lovable, generous and kind. Imagine the joy of lacking nothing that is good, of never being sick, never having accidents, never knowing evil or being wrong. Imagine life as one grand adventure where all we need to do is look, listen, and live in harmony.

Sound boring? Then just go on living in the dark as we appear to be doing now. Nothing boring about that! I know most people subscribe to the belief that without evil we wouldn’t know how to define good, but a few do not. These few see glimpses of a perfect creation which needs only the light of Love and Truth to illumine it. They see that as their purpose, to see and be children of light. 

There’s a lot to do along this line. It may take us an eternity of Sundays, but I’ll bet we can make the grade if we don’t give up trying. Would that be working on the Sabbath? No, I think God would let me play with that doll!