It was a good weekend. I spent it pretty much alone, but for me that’s a feature, not a bug.

I spent most of Saturday concentrating on reading over the galley proofs of the new novel, West Oversea. It had been some time since I’d actually looked at the thing, and to my amazement I thought it was really good. There were plot twists I’d forgotten about completely, so I had the odd pleasure of surprising myself.

I’ve often thought that it’s too bad I can’t read Lars Walker’s novels, because he seems like the kind of writer I’d take to. Apparently that’s true.

Sunday started, as they generally do, with church. I don’t think I’ve told you that I finally made the big jump and started attending a different church. Not the one I blogged about visiting a while back, but a different church which I’d known about, but whose location I’d entirely mistaken. Turns out it’s convenient for me—miles closer than my old church. And the great thing is that they offer a traditional service (with Communion), so I don’t have to do praise songs anymore.

The difficult part is that this service is at 8:00 a.m., which means I have to get up at my normal getting-up-for-work time. The upside is that when I come home, about 9:30, I’ve got the whole beautiful Sunday in front of me.

I love Sundays. I think one of the problems in the church is that we’ve totally mistaken how to take our Sundays.

There’s the legalistic error. I remember my grandmother telling of Sundays in her childhood, where the operative rule seemed to be, “Thou shalt spend the day being bored.” The children were allowed to read the Bible or something inspirational. No other activity was permitted. She told of hiding a piece of embroidery behind her Bible, stitching in secret so her mother couldn’t see it. Unfortunately she didn’t notice that she was stitching the cloth to one of the pages.

The other error is to ignore Sunday. Nowadays many Christians see Sunday as another Saturday for shopping and home improvement. That makes it just another day of business and bother, and sucks the joy out of it.

If your boss came to you and said, “Things are slow. Take the afternoon off, with pay,” would you get all upset about it? Obsess about to how to use the time best? Wouldn’t you enjoy the luxury of the thing, and be grateful to your boss?

That’s how I try to take Sundays. Barring emergencies, I don’t shop on Sunday. I also don’t clean house or do maintenance. And since the time I decided I wanted to write professionally, I’ve made it my rule never to write anything I expect to be paid for on a Sunday.

The result is that my Sundays are a delight. A relaxing, refreshing time. Yesterday I read, watched three movies on DVD, and slapped some paint on new shields. I never come to Sunday with a list of things to get done, so I never feel guilty about not completing it. Sunday is the day I can unleash my inner Aesop Grasshopper and feel righteous about it.

People are nuts. God gives us a day off and we either make it an ordeal, or dishonor it through neglect. Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” I try to take it in that spirit, and if I live to be 90, I’ll give the credit to Sundays.