Observing The Sabbath, sort of…

The Sabbath, the seventh day, God’s day of rest.

For the Jewish, following Mosaic Law, to not observe the day of rest, is a sin. I’m starting to think they’re on to something.

In my adult life I can think of not one single instance of taking a day of rest. There are many many many days when I have done absolutely sod all, but I would argue that those don’t count.

Being hungover isn’t restful, being ill isn’t restful, being depressed isn’t restful, creative avoidance of tasks isn’t restful, being indolent isn’t restful. For the last one, I have found indolence to be particularly deleterious, the opposite of restful. I have noticed over the years that unearned rest accrues a debt to be repaid.

For Christians, our day of rest is Sunday, for my generation, that grew up in the eighties and early nineties, Sundays were awful. There was nothing to get up for, so you didn’t. Friends never seemed to be about on a Sunday for some reason, so when you finally did get out of bed and go down stairs, mam was already on with the Sunday dinner, and that seemed to take all morning. Dad was at the pub.

I don’t really understand that, thinking about it now. It was normal then, in some households, for the man of the house to spend Sunday morning at their local pub, come home when the pub shut, eat their Sunday Dinner, and then sleep it off on the sofa. I hated that. We had one TV, there was nothing on it to watch, and even if there was, you couldn’t hear it.

No one to play with. Nowhere to go. Nothing was open. The whole day was centred on the Sunday Dinner. We did not attend church.

For a fussy eater such as I was, every sunday I wondered what I had done wrong to deserve Sunday dinner, it was punishment. “Best meal of the week” my Dad would say, but he would say that, it was made exactly to his taste, or else.

I’m off on a tangent now as I recall how Dad liked his Sunday dinner. Back then, everything was boiled to mush, except the peas, peas were sloppy. Potatoes were either boiled or roasted, and in any form, they were always the favourite. If they were mashed, I could mix in the cabbage and cover with gravy to make it more palatable. Mashed potatoes in our house were just potatoes that were mashed, not seasoned, not creamy, not buttery. The gravy was thin, dad didn’t like thick gravy, it hid the flavour of the veg or something. I couldn’t eat the peas. Sprouts were everything I hated about cabbage but condensed in to several potent packets of pure hate. I liked the meat, but that was always well done, very well done infact. Pink beef was considered to be raw and had to cooked dry. I have no complaints about the Yorkshire Puddings.

I always hated Sunday Dinner. But now its the highlight of my week. My children however hate Sunday dinner every bit as much as I did, which I can’t fathom. I do creamy garlic mash, they won’t eat it. I do boiled new potatoes, garnished with melted butter, dried herbs, and pink rocksalt. They won’t eat it. I do crispy roast potatoes, parboiled, roasted in beef dripping and seasoned with garlic salt and a dash of pepper. I have spent years mastering the perfect spud, and those do get eaten. Peas are not allowed in the house at the same time as me. I don’t have many house laws, but peas are absolutely forbidden. Strangely, the sprouts get eaten. Brocoli and cauliflower go down well too. For meat, I like it a bit rare. All that said, and they still hate my Sunday Dinners. I suppose its not cooked to their taste either. I have received complaints about my Yorkshire puddings.

During my teens, there was a campaign to keep Sundays special. Keep Sundays boring more like. At the time, I was thankful that it failed. I wasn’t religious, why should Sundays be any different to any other day. I also didn’t have a job at the time either, and that went some way to (miss) informing my opinions on matters of economics and productivity.

Things have changed a lot in thirty five years. Sunday trading was fantastic for people like me that have low motivation and low impulse control. If the shops were shut on Sundays, I would not be able to cook a Sunday lunch. I buy mother’s day gifts on Mother’s Day. I am a busy guy, when else am I going to fit in a trip to IKEA?

It always felt wrong to me, the shopping centres inundated at the weekend with hoards of shoppers looking for stuff they don’t need, and yet I participated. Sunday shopping meant that I didn’t have to plan in advance. To fail to plan is to plan to fail. My whole life was built on the premise that I didn’t need to plan.

Things are different now. I don’t know if its age, burn out, or because I do go to church now. Its not like I need an excuse to do sod all. What I think has changed is that I am understanding that rest isn’t just a break from the work, its a break from thinking about the work.

Jesus broke the commandment to observe the Sabbath saying that the Sabbath is for the man, not the man for the Sabbath. I took that to mean that the day of rest is there for us if we need it. What I now realise is that we need the day of rest, and that is why we have it.

Christians take Sunday as their holy day, so its not the Sabbath that is being observed, but I will be having my day of rest from now on.

That doesn’t mean I won’t do anything at all, there will still be washing up to be done and things of that nature. Making Sunday lunch takes a lot of effort, but I have never considered it to be work. I close the kitchen door, open a beer, put on a podcast or audio book, and start chopping. How is that work?

I have spent the first two hours of my first day of rest writing this blog piece. Is that work? Not really, I enjoyed every minute of it. Phone in one hand, coffee in the other.

Planned for the day is morning Mass, shops for school packed lunches and some wine. That should have been done yesterday, when we were shopping. There’s that pernicious lack of necessity to plan again. No Sunday lunch to cook, we’re going to Truck Haven for a carvery  while we still can. Maybe fold some laundry and put it away, is that work? Maybe, probably be is. Should have been done yesterday…

The penny is starting to drop for me, finally.