Spring Bee Hiving Moon
Sundays have a certain slowness to them, as if time itself moves languidly, the urgency of the workweek drained out. Of course, that’s an inversion of the real phenomena which happens not on Sunday but in the mind when it finds itself in a Sunday way.
Back when I was a small town boy, Sunday meant shining my father’s shoes in the morning before church. While complaining about it. I mean, thirty-five cents for dipping my hands in black shoe polish? Then, off to Sunday School with one teacher or another followed by the Sunday service sitting in the family pew (not reserved, but held for us anyhow by long tradition) under the watchful eye of Jesus praying, his hands on a large boulder, in the Garden of Gethsemane. This was stage right from the pulpit on the west side of the sanctuary.
Afterward, at least for a long time, we would often get in the family sedan, Mary and I in the back, mom and dad up front, and drive over to Elwood (our most bitter athletic rivals, but that didn’t matter to mom and dad) and go to Mangas’ cafeteria. It had those tubular rails with an upraised one at the back to hold your formica tray as you passed by the offerings in small dishes. I remember most the swiss steak, which I loved, and mashed potatoes with butter pooling yellow in the middle.
We would eat, then go home where the rest of the day disappears from memory.
Later, as a city rat, church was a work related experience since my city time is almost exactly coterminous with seminary and my career as a minister. So, I would head off to work on Sunday morning, usually in this church or that since I worked for the Presbytery (a geographical jurisdiction) and when I finished, again Sunday afternoon sort of disappears from memory.
As an exurbanite, I fell into the Sunday afternoon NFL maw for several years, but as of late the Viking’s have cured me of that experience. That means now Sundays have neither church nor the cafeteria nor football and what is left is the residue of passivity Sunday represented in its small town and football eras. No wonder my inner world moves more slowly on Sundays.
It’s my secular sabbath. And I think that’s a good thing.
