I was struck the other day by a story about the residents of Stornaway in the remote Hebrides, engaged in a David and Goliath style battle with their local Tesco, as the superstore decided to break with previous tradition and start trading on the Sabbath there. Thanks to my own family history I had some sympathy for these latter-day Hebridean Canutes, pushing vainly against the tsunami we call progress! Growing up my libertarian father had few rules but the two he stuck to were emphatically enforced: never leaving food on your plate, a hangover from his experience of deprivation in Norway during the war and Sacred Sundays (despite being a confirmed atheist). His commitment to differentiating Sundays from the rest of the week had nothing to do with God and everything to do with his belief that like air to breath and water to quench our thirst humans need space and time for thought, contemplation and a mental download. To my dad Peter this was as imperative to our good health as exercise, diet or any of the more obvious commitments to what we now call ‘wellness’. So it was that every Sunday in our house the TV and radio would be switched off and the noisy world forced outside our four walls while we kids grumbled and found ways to amuse ourselves to the backdrop of Handel’s Water Music and Bach Cello, only classical music being deemed appropriate for weekly ‘thinking time’!
Those of you reading this and under thirty will no doubt be scratching your heads and wondering what further example of past foolishness I’m referring to. After all we inhabit a 24/7 shopathon society; where we can buy new shoes, laundry liquid or even a car overnight. In such a world the original reason for giving up our weekly ‘day of rest’ to facilitate shopping for workers who laboured outside of normal 9-5 hours, is totally redundant. Predating Deliveroo, Amazon, and all the other services providing you with your hearts desires without even leaving your bed, that old reasoning is obviously as past its sell by date as the petticoat. But the argument for a day of rest seems even more imperative today in a world that never ever switches off, where every moment of our leisure we’re cajoled by corporations and indeed by our governments to spend spend spend, to stay connected, lured by cynical algorithms to our devices, ‘allowed’ to work ‘flexibly’ (elongated hours) and generally sacrifice our planet and our wellbeing as a species to keep those great economic cogs turning.
I know at the moment we’re all about ‘Growth’ so the idea of a respite from spending will not be a popular one but when it comes to mental health, to overwrought anxious teenagers, to exhausted women juggling caring and career demands, men and women across the world at breaking point, tit for tat trade wars being battled by unreconstructed macho morons, and in general a news cycle entirely aimed at keeping us watching and listening for the catnip of bad news - wouldn’t we all benefit from a day off? Instead of tackling that vertical, but slippery slope we’re all nevertheless pressured to relentlessly ascend, making socially-aspirational mountaineers of every man woman and child, would it be such a bad idea to take the foot off the pedal every now and again? What about personal growth? The very thing that makes good citizens of us all and helps in the creation of a fairer more equitable world? We don’t get that from never ever pressing pause.
The battle may well be long lost for those of us who relished that blessed one day out of seven when you were forced to ponder, pad about and generally do very little, but pockets of resistance, like the residents of Stornaway in the Hebrides pushing back at their encroaching superstore, are a reminder that ‘progress’ and ‘growth’ aren’t always good for our hearts and souls. Perhaps if we put more emphasis on what we need (much less), rather than what we’re encouraged to want, we might all be healthier, happier and even wiser for it! I’d happily agree to maintaining my shopping quotas, listening to anxiety inducing headlines, and generally being programmed by an algorithm to act like an automaton six days a week but for heavens sake, return me the Sabbath! Sunday’s aren’t just for Christians! And failing the introduction of an officially sanctioned day to put our communal feet up (genius politics to me), there’s always individual affirmative action. I’m already striking on International Women’s Day in support of the billions of women who don’t get paid equitably across our planet despite doing more than their fair share of the work - maybe I’ll make it a weekly protest instead.
The fact that i`m reading your valuable comment on a sunday presumably means i still have to work on my personal sabbath, but yes, i like the idea behind it.
Besides, i really had to grin about your "the plate should always be empty". This is a well known sentence to me, too. Inbetween, it has become a part of my personal sabbath that my plate on Sundays has not to be filled anyway. Not cooking for hours can be a reasonable strategy, too.
I am old enough to still see the picture of women cooking all the late morning long to get full plates on the table for the family - no sabbath for them.
Things have fortunately changed, but there are increasing attempts of conservative circles to turn back that wheel willing to chain women on the kitchen stove again.
But i am getting off topic - thanks a lot for your thoughts...
I remember growing up in the 70s in the UK. Sundays were always days when shops were closed. The last time I re-lived those wonderful days was during Covid. I remember going for a walk and noticing that no cars were on the road. Nothing was open. And I couldn’t help but smile to myself. What did we do on Sundays back then? We spent time as a family playing a board game, we gathered around the TV to watch a film together. We read books. We met friends in the street and we played games or talked or just sat around doing nothing. The thing is, we can still do all of these things on Sunday. It’s in us to say no. We are not going to let them cajole us into feeding our wants ad infinitum, debt-fuelled as they become in time. I purposefully place 2 1-hour slots into my Outlook calendar as a recurring daily routine, simply titled “Do Nothing” and that is what I do with that time. Nothing. There is a Japanese concept called Ma (popularised by the animator Hayao Miyazaki), which means ‘emptiness’ or ‘negative space’. Used in his animations (Spirited Away being my favourite) as moments when his characters pause and do nothing more overt than ponder the moment, feel present for a while and reflect, that emptiness in the busyness of the world is where intuition and inspiration lives.