The Sabbath Day

[byu71]

This was at BYU. The home teachers wanted to come over to visit me and I suggested they go fishing with me. So after church we headed up the provo and fished for about an hour or so. One of them went with me a few more times. It was great. I got to know my home teachers a lot better than the usually 30 minute, how's-it-going-here-is-the-1st-presidency-message visit.

You wouldn't get an argument from me. Actually, if I told my home teacher I was taking my sons and grandsons golfing Sunday afternoon, he probably wouldn't say anything. However, I would expect a visit from the HP Presidency or the Bishop. So if I do, I probably won't tell him and just hope I don't bump into one of the ward members on the course.

[LiveCoug]

Growing up, we weren't allowed to do anything on Sunday's. No TV, no playing outside. We could listen to church music, read scriptures, but that's about it. We stayed in our church clothes all day. I really didn't like it and I came to dread Sunday's. Maybe I wasn't spiritual enough to see the great joy of only doing churchy things all day. For some people, that works and they love it. Not me.

Now that I am married and have a family of my own, rules are different. We generally have the TV off in the morning and prepare lessons and such (wife is Relief Society president, so she has meetings). After church, we will watch some TV, make dinner, go on a bike ride, play in the yard, hang out with friends. We won't spend money or go to the lake or pool ( I hate the water anyway. ).

It works well for us.

[YOhio]

Finding stuff to do on Sunday afternoon is always a struggle for me between February and August.

[Moliere]

Hmm...I thought I had posted more on this at one point but all I could find is a snippet from some other discussion:

http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showpo...9&postcount=57

Most of what we do (or don't do) on Sunday is cultural. I'm no bibilical scholar, but keeping the sabbath day holy to me means that we do activities that help keep us in a worship-type manner throughout the day. For my family this often means working on callings, going to church, making cookies for friends/neighbors, playing board games as a family, reading (not just scriptures but other good books), taking a walk around the lake, feeding the birds, etc. We also don't watch tv or play computer games on Sunday (except GC and the Super Bowl) but that is not because we think it breaks the Sabbath day but solely because we want one day without tv or the wii being turned on.

Our favorite thing to do on Sunday is to invite other families over for dinner. My wife is very social and I like to cook so this works out well. We do this a lot more when it's cooler and we can sit outside and grill or BBQ and just enjoy the company of other people. We'll usually make sure one of the families we invite has kids about the same age as our kids so they can play together.

Those are just some ideas that work for us. I wouldn't poo-poo anyone for dealing with the Sabbath day differently then how my families does it. In fact, there was a family from the ward that invited our son over for a sleepover birthday party one Sunday night. We figured it would be fine and as I dropped him off at the party I realized I was blocked in the driveway by teh pizza delivery guy. I didn't say anything to the dad and he's never mentioned it to me. I wouldn't order pizza on Sunday and kudos to him for not feeling guilty about it even after I saw it.

EDIT: If I ever did have to order pizza on Sunday, I'd make my 7-year old do the ordering since she is not yet accountable.

[Tick's wife]

Every family is different. We believe in enjoying the Sabbath and not punishing our kids. You are doing something as a family (yard work) great! It is beautifying the Lord's earth. Going for a walk is making you healthier, which is part of the WOW as is going swimming. What you do is what you do. If you are happy doing what you are doing, continue. Don't worry about the Sabbath Nazi that is out there.

[Jeff Lebowski]

My kids are a little older than yours, but we love to cook on Sundays. We often pick something challenging and hang out in the kitchen, chopping, mixing, and cooking the food. Yesterday, we made this:



(apologies to Donuthole for using his photo)

followed by a batch of cookies and watermelon pie. Everything was fabulous. Great way to spend time as a family.

[Jacob]

I think part of it is the age.

I'm thinking/hoping that by my kids teenage years, everybody will be enjoying long naps. Sunday was my favorite day as a teenager.

It is difficult with young kids though, who are always doing something.

When the weather isn't too hot (like it is now) we like to go on walks or bake with them. We make cookies for the new neighbors yesterday

They love that.

Why am I having such a difficult time believing that? Either you were on an entirely different spiritual plane than the rest of the world, or your family didn't observe the sabbath in the traditional Mormon manner.

Maybe there's a 3rd option. The rest of your life really sucked?

As for a response to the initial question, I've taken to quoting this scripture: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). And I interpret it as meaning that the Sabbath is not intended to be a day of boredom and drudgery. It is mostly a day to worship (reinvigorate the spririt) and rest from our labors (reinvigorate our bodies).

When I was a kid, we had constant battles about TV. My parents were strong sabbath observers, but we could always find some loopholes, that we, or my dad invented. E.g. It's OK to watch sports it there is a Mormon playing, so we could watch Steve Young and the Niners and the Jazz, because they had a Mormon owner. It was OK to do about anything as long as it was just the family and at home. Fortunately we had a tennis court and basketball hoop, so tennis and basketball were good.

These exceptions are clearly irrational justifications. But I don't, and never did, feel bad in the slightest for having done them on the sabbath.

Nowadays, I go grocery shopping, sometimes go for a run, occasionally mow the lawn, but mostly sit around and watch TV. I am certain that the watching TV is no better than most activities I could do instead, including boating and the like. So while I still mostly observe the sabbath in the traditional sense, I don't really think it is useful or important.

And I am annoyed by some rules. My SIL doesn't allow her kids to jump on the trampoline on Sunday. OK. But why are they allowed to play rambunctiously in the basement?

Also, the "don't make other people work" rule is pretty silly, IMO. Going out to breakfast is an excellent Sunday family activity, IMO. It also has the benefit of reducing the amount of work done (cooking and dishes, and fighting with kids) and the stress.

My family never played organized sports, but I won't prohibit my kids from doing it if they want to. And I can't really look up to the guy who skipped out on an NFL career due to sabbath observance. That's just dumb.

[Clark Addison]

We struggle with this. Like you have experienced, the day can easily end up filled with bickering kids.

My family was very conservative about this growing up. We could not play with friends, go to parties, or even play active games outside (croquet was a standard Sunday activity, I would recommend it). We also did not change out of our Sunday clothes all day, the only concession being that the boys could change out of our ties. We often had a "No TV" policy, though that was often flouted during baseball season. In addition to croquet, my two older siblings and I had a weekly scrabble game with our father, we had a big dinner, and we read both Sunday papers (which, ironically, my father stopped off at the convenience store to get after church).

We are a little less conservative than this, but are still pretty conservative. No having friends over, no birthday parties, etc. We've been thinking about this over the last bit, especially now that we have teenagers pushing back on us. It came to a mini-head yesterday when we let our oldest go to a back-yard get-together with some friends, but did not let #2 go to a music festival type of thing (we used the Making people Work argument).

So I have no answers, but we are thinking of the same thing in our house.

[beefytee]

Why am I having such a difficult time believing that? Either you were on an entirely different spiritual plane than the rest of the world, or your family didn't observe the sabbath in the traditional Mormon manner.

Taking 3 hour afternoon naps put you on a different spiritual plane?

[Uncle Ted]

Finding stuff to do on Sunday afternoon is always a struggle for me between February and August.

I have found that NASCAR helps fills this void.

[Indy Coug]

Our Sabbath Day typically takes this path (but it's not a formal arrangement or by mandate)

1. Church until noon

2. Lunch ending around 1

3. Naps/quiet time for at least an hour (it's the favorite part of the day for our teenager)

4. Home teaching for me, family games or watching TV together, sometimes it's church-related, but usually not

5. Dinner with kids taking turns on helping with dinner prep, if it's nice enough outside, we'll eat out on the deck and the kids will play on the swing set

6. More games/TV time/reading together/calling relatives


If it's nice enough after dinner, sometimes we'll take a family walk around the neighborhood (we live in a wooded area near a river) or short drive to nowhere in particular. Once in a blue moon, we'll venture out further and go to a place like Harmony, PA where the first baptisms took place.

So sabbath activities for us

1. Usually have to involve the entire family
2. Don't require anyone outside of our family to work
3. Don't require any of us to spend an inordinate amount of energy to do
4. If it doesn't involve the entire family, it has to be a church-related activity that is part of our calling(s)

[Jacob]

Taking 3 hour afternoon naps put you on a different spiritual plane?

I just never met a teenager who'd rather take a 3 hour afternoon nap than do whatever he wants on a Saturday afternoon--waterskiing, motorbiking, hanging with friends, playing sports, video games...the list goes on and on. It's not like teenagers couldn't take a nap on Saturday afternoons, if that were really something to look forward to. Most of them seem to try to sleep in until sometime around noon anyway.

[Indy Coug]

I just never met a teenager who'd rather take a 3 hour afternoon nap than do whatever he wants on a Saturday afternoon--waterskiing, motorbiking, hanging with friends, playing sports, video games...the list goes on and on. It's not like teenagers couldn't take a nap on Saturday afternoons, if that were really something to look forward to. Most of them seem to try to sleep in until sometime around noon anyway.

Except on Saturdays, they aren't usually waking up at 7AM, all groggy and grumpy.

[Pheidippides]

Except on Saturdays, they aren't usually waking up at 7AM, all groggy and grumpy.

And I spent all day Saturday working on the farm as a teenager. No time for a nap.

[Jacob]

Except on Saturdays, they aren't usually waking up at 7AM, all groggy and grumpy.

Neither are most mormon teenagers. At most, 1/3 of american mormons have church that starts at 9:00 am or earlier. And I'd wager very few teenagers with 9:00 church get up before 8:00.