Sunday Traditions

Ever sit and think about the past?  I do- perhaps a little too often.  Many Sundays, I find myself wondering "what happened to Sunday traditions?".   I'm talking about the true, imbedded traditions, that defined who we, as Americans were (in part).  The kind that comes to mind when you look at Norman Rockwell paintings.

Getting the family ready for church, for one.  Too many families do not attend church, citing reasons such as being too busy, schedule conflicts, children's sports (which are now often scheduled on Sundays) and the need or desire to have a quiet morning at home.  We need the ritual of getting up, getting dressed, eating breakfast as a family (which may not happen during the week) and going to church together.

After the week, it's a perfect time for our families to come together, refocus our energies and gives families the chance to remember that there are bigger things in life than what they deal with.  Being with a community of like minded believers, gives us a view much grander than ourselves.  It's important to teach our children the lessons learned in Church- forgiveness, grace, mercy.  Being in church weekly, also instills in ourselves and our children a sense of responsibility and duty (which is also lacking in my opinion, but thats for another day).

What about Sunday dinners?  When my son was home, Sunday was always set aside as family day.  None of us made plans without the family.  His sports, our friends, jobs, etc, all were put on hold on Sundays.  Instead, we used that day to play games, cook dinners that took all day to make, talked, read, hiked, etc.  The point was that we, as a family, were going to spend one day out of seven together.  We cooked large dinners, made favorite snacks, laughed, talked and spent quality time together.  Some of our best memories were made on those Sundays- even now, we hold Sundays close to our hearts.

Sunday meals were traditionally a time for families to come together after a hectic week and catch up.  It was a time to linger at the table, talk about work, school, friends, social issues, etc.  This gave children a chance to learn how adults thought, felt and believed about issues, and it gave parents a chance to really listen and get to know their children.  Nowadays, too many of our children don't eat at home, or they don't eat with their parents.  Busy work schedules, longer work hours, less of a focus on family time, all contribute to the decline of family meal times- which research shows is so important for the development of our children.

It has become socially acceptable to not see our families all day.  We get up, go to work or school, come home, do homework, go out with friends, watch tv (often in different rooms), play on our electronics, and go to bed with little real connection with each other.  Sunday dinners slowed the pace of the week- it gave the family a chance to connect and to recharge, to prepare for the upcoming week. Instead of a rat race pace for months on end, families consistently had at least one day a week to slow down, get their bearings and prepare for the week ahead.  The Bible tells us that this is essential- God commands us to take a day- there is a reason for this, we are wired to require time to slow down and recharge.

Overall, weekly traditions play a role in shaping who are children grow into and how they view family life.  They provide a consistency that is all to often lacking in this world- and we all crave some consistency and predicability.  It also defines who we, as a family are.  This goes a long way to helping our children define who they are as individuals.  It is my opinion, that we as families need to reclaim our Sunday traditions, whatever they are, and reclaim our family life.

That is the view from my corner of the world.