catsrus:
I grew up in Pa where we had “blue laws” for many years. EVERYTHING (except hospitals and the phone co.) was closed on Sunday. Sundays were for Church and family and no one even thought of shopping of any kind or working. How I miss that!
My grandfather went so far as this: once he had a field of strawberries on his farm that had to be picked on Sunday, or the crop would be lost. He made the day of work optional (that is, no one lost their bonus for showing up every day all season if they missed the Sunday) got the crop picked, and when the cannery paid him for the berries, he split the proceeds among those who had brought in the crop. He had the berries picked so that they wouldn’t be wasted, but he kept nothing for himself. This was when gradeschool kids did much of the berry picking. I remember it well, because we made about four or five times the normal rate for the berries we picked that day.
How is it that back then, when you had to work harder at everything, when there was no permanent press and no microwave ovens, there was still time to rest on Sundays? I think it is because back then employers got two workers for every one that they paid: one to give their working hours to the employer and one to free the paid worker from all the domestic chores.
Now the families with two workers have to split that third shift… and we’ve added things on top of those schedules like year-around sports and two or three hours of TV or internet cruising a night. We’ve also re-defined what is necessity and what is luxury… and we feel entitled to a little luxury, at that.
Those unpaid workers (almost all moms) were also the ones who did the volunteer work at church, at hospitals, and so on back then. Now, thank goodness, we have some older people who are healthy well into retirement who can do some of that, but it is clear how grey the volunteer force has become.
These days, you really have to be willing to give up what your family and neighbors have in order to keep Sundays. You have to be content with less daily leisure than most people take and have to define your standard of living at a lower level than what most people give themselves.
I don’t want to go back to the '50s, but I do want to re-claim a re-examined version of those old priorities, where we are honest about whether or not we can accomodate a day of rest, worship, and almsgiving (read: volunteering) into our schedules. I’m far from that now, but that is where we want to head.
all the denominitions of christianity who believe in no unneccesary work on sunday ought to group together, come up with a list of jobs that need one to work sunday like public safety, etc. then strong arm the others into not forcing their workers to work sundays. it might just work.
