Making time for Sunday
Liz's blog just reminded me of something I was thinking about last night. Weekends seem to fly by so quickly, and I started to wonder why. Sundays especially seem to move so quickly.
As I've thought about it, I've realized that, strangely enough, sometimes Sundays are hard days to really worship. Our ward has so much going on--much of it meaningful and constructive, much of it...less so--that I almost wonder if I need to take a break from Sunday sometimes. I mean...well, here. If I took advantage of every such opportunity offered, my Sunday schedule would look like this:
- Up at 9
- Hospital singing, 10-11
- Lunch, practicing hymns for sacrament meeting, misc. meetings, etc., 11-12:30
- Ward choir, 12:40
- Playing prelude, 1:10
- Church, 1:30-4:30
- Dinner, chatting it up with everyone after church, etc., 5:00-6:00
- Taking calls at the MTC, 6:00-7:00 (actually, I'm not positive on what time this is)
- Cooking for sweet swap, 7:00-7:45
- Ward prayer, 7:45
- Sweet swap, 8:30
I dunno. It's not like the ward expects everyone to go to everything. But sometimes it seems like there are so many things to do on Sunday that it's hard to have a day of rest. It feels a little bit like, "Well, it's church- or service-related? Let's do it on Sunday!"
Oh, well. I don't mean to rag on all the quirky social/pseudo-spiritual constructs of a typical singles ward, because while I know they're ridiculous, I think they are at least well-intentioned. I'm not really sure what I'm saying here, other than trying to remind myself to make Sunday...Sunday. Thoughts?
5 comments:
Just imagine how people in leadership positions feel. In my last ward our bishopric insisted on having Ward Council every. single. week.
Well, it's incredibly hard for the singles here to get out during the week, so we usually end up doing all the YSA activities on Sundays...not to mention that I attend a 9am ward, while the rest of my family goes to the Filipino ward at 1130 and then usually either have some activity or baptism or family thing...and all of a sudden I'm getting home and it's time for bed already...
Oh, and I'm finally blogging regularly..lets see how long that lasts..haha
I know exactly how you feel. I think the quality of my Sunday worship has gone down significantly since I came out to BYU, mostly just because of the relative backlash of coming back from a mission, but also because it's just such a packed day that it's easy to forget the meaning behind it. I don't know if it's anyone's fault persay, just that it's a general trend. It's also been my experience that the typical student ward is about 70% social and maybe %20 spiritual, so after a long day at church, I usually am more in the mood to watch some movies, play some games, or putz around on the internet, not so much dedicate the time to personal study or worship.
Yeah, I feel like that's exactly it. For me, it's not so much being busy that becomes so distracting as what I'm busy doing. Sundays too often end up feeling like a big food & games fest instead of the most sacred day of the week. Makes me sad. :( What does one do about it?
The general authorities have counseled against the very thing you're talking about - having too many meetings and other activities scheduled on Sunday. The answer is simple. Cut out some of the things you have scheduled and take the time for rest, scripture study, etc. I think your bishop would say the same.
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