What I love about Sundays...

I remember my great Aunt Becky once saying to me, "Sunday just feels different." And she's right; it really does. Now, Aunt Becky is a devout member of the Nazarene Church in our small hometown, and she attributes her Sunday feelings to her belief that Sunday is the Lord's day. I don't share her beliefs in that regard, but I do have my own reasons for finding Sundays different than other days of the week.

While I deeply enjoy Sundays now, I haven't always. I clearly remember despising Sundays when I was in college. Sunday was always way too quiet. Everyone was hung over from Saturday night, sitting in their dorms working on projects and homework for the coming week. The cafeteria was always practically empty at meal time, and everything just felt way too sedated. At that time in my life, I had no appreciation for sedateness. When things got too quiet, I started thinking, and in thinking, I started worrying. Arguably, I was probably a good candidate for anti-anxiety medication as an undergraduate, but it only got bad if I was left too long to my own devices as I often was on Sundays.

Nowadays, though, things are different. I'm almost 27, done with undergrad and graduate school. I have a career, a spouse, and, as a degreed social worker, I feel confident in asserting that I am no longer in need of mental health medication. Now, I'm ok with quiet, probably moreso than ever before in my life.

The wife and I recently joined our local Unitarian Universalist church, where we'd been regularly attending services for some time. I love our church for many reasons, including the amazing choir director, the church's commitment to social justice, and our truly inspiring minister, who manages, each week, to give us thoughtful, articulate sermons that are inclusive, practical, and in keeping with our UU principles. (If you're interested in learning more about UU-ism in general, you can do so here).

Each Sunday after the sermon, our minister invites us to a time of "meditation and aspiration," to sit in quiet contemplation of the message we've just heard. I love that moment of sitting and processing what's just been offered to me, but it's a very brief moment. I try to make mental notes of what particular bits I'd like to hold onto, mull over more, and carry with me throughout the week, but still I tend to forget them quickly as life picks up and moves on again. So I've decided to have a go at this blog, the purpose of which being to extend that time of meditation and aspiration, and force myself to truly reflect on the messages I've heard and their application to my daily life. Now that I'm comfortable with quiet on my Sundays, I want to make the most of it.

So here we go...