The Sabbath

Have you ever wondered which Christian felt it was a good idea to put the Sabbath on Sunday? It hasn't always been on a Sunday, of course -- the Christian calendar is largely an arbitrary one, usually arranged to eclipse the pagan holidays it was, at one time, trying to create (you remember learning that Christ wasn't born in December and that the time of Resurrection had nothing to do with the pagan fertility rites that remain in our Easter eggs, right?). No one has ever properly explained to me how we moved away from the Sabbath as a holy day of rest and into the Sabbath as a day to stuff full of activities from dawn until dusk. Even the Puritans, a fairly industrious group of Americans since they believed idleness led to sinfulness, rested on the Sabbath. I say this because it is raining today, a Sunday, and the world outside is heavy with dark clouds and beautiful as a backdrop to a green Mississippi. Oh, I know I can't fight aeons of tradition and I'm not saying I'm giving up attending worship services. It's just that there's something sacred that comes from stillness.