Ontario’s Family Day – working hard to do nothing at all

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Today’s Blog Post
Ontario’s Family Day – working hard to do nothing at all

Can you remember when you did nothing on your day off? Most of us do something to catch up on our day off because we are so very busy on the other days of the week.

Can you remember way back when Sunday was considered to be a/the “Day of Rest”? You know people did nothing on that day but sit around and just be quiet. Believe it or not that happened in the last Century and its first 50 years. Its last 50 years were not so much like that.

On that day, among all the other days of the week, a majority of the folk simply did very little except go to church on Sunday. Of course the Minister had to work and so did the music people, like the organist.

Now as I write these words I am writing as a person that doesn’t work at a normal job any longer. We no longer have to get me ready for an office experience and public engagements that require meal and clothing to be ready for certain times and days of the week. That part is gone and life is a little more relaxed.

When we decide to have a “lay in” (as my British and Irish friends say), we simply do. We do not have to be anywhere 90% or the time.

However, a new regime has become part of my life where a primary amount of my time (and my wife’s time) revolves around caring for my Mother in her 91st year of life. As she lives with us there is a constant, ongoing need to help her in many ways. But the needs she represents are so minimal that it has just become part of our lives.

That is how some of our life is engaged and it is easy to cope with.

But going back to the Sunday as a Day of Rest… and having a Day Off… for the general population these two days do not exist any longer. Life has become very much faster than the one that my Grandparents once lived.

Joanne Laucius wrote an interesting reflection for the Ottawa Citizen on days off, and holidays that our families are suppose to get now. She writes specially about Ontario’s Family Day and the way that some people cannot get that day off – even though it is a holiday. Where certain jobs are considered essential and people that work at these tasks do not get that Family Day off. (see Link below)

Joanne points to an obvious fact as well. Families that have both parents working and also have small children, Day Cares are vital to their ability keep working. But when Day Cares shut down for their Staff to get their Family Day, some folk do have to work and are forced to take time from their annual vacation time to look after their own kids.

What I find odd about our present way of living is that we have to rearrange our life’s very busy schedules to get one simple day away. In fact the effort to get away takes more out of us and costs us more financially than ever before.

Life is so complicated that taking time away is a chore. It is easier to work all the time. Far better than shutting down the normal system and causing us grief.

But going back to my Grandpa Kirkpatrick who worked on his farm 24/7… how did he get days off and how did he rest?

I remember Grandpa sometimes laying down after his mid-day meal. It was just for a little while before heading back out to the shop. And it was the custom way back then to take a mid-day rest to allow the body to recoup.

Then on Sunday after the chores were complete and the animals were looked after, they did nothing at all. They simply slept and read and did nothing… absolutely nothing. It was their day of rest.

On that little farm that was situated west of Truax, Saskatchewan and east of the Blue Hills Sundays were quiet.

These deeply spiritual relatives of mine didn’t attend a church as there was none of their kind in the area. I think the closest one might have been 35 – 60 miles away. And that was simply too far to go when the animals needed looking after at least twice a day.

It is odd now looking back on that distant past and the family that we came from… in that all of the offspring and their offspring and now their offspring are likely the busiest people on the planet!

Three generations later we are insanely living at the speed of light.. until we crash and burn.

Mind you we have Blood Pressure pills to prop us up – or rather keep the BP down. We have other pills that clean our arteries of foul cholesterol that comes along from the stress and the poor diets. We have therapists that rub sore muscles and limbs that are simply uptight from not getting enough time to relax and rebuild.

Oh Boy!

Today is Family Day and we will do nothing in our house. Oh… no… that is not true… our church has planned something fun to do later in the afternoon. We are skating together I think.

Yesterday was a true day of rest. It was Sunday.

For 35 years I have had to be in church before everyone else, making sure that the doors are open, that it is warm enough in the winter and cool enough in the summer. I had to work each Sunday without fail… because that was my job.

Yesterday, after a very big Saturday(I wrote about it a few days ago), we simply slept in and did the Charlie and Emma Kirkpatrick thing on the farm at Truax. We did nothing at all. And it was good.

God gave us a hint and an example. In the early part of the Bible Book entitled Genesis, His creating the world is described. It is pretty amazing to read that part over again. Then in a spectacular way it states, “and on the seventh day He rested.”

If the all powerful God had to rest, maybe I, in my less powerful state of being need to rest too.

This is Family Day today. I will get breakfast ready for my Mom. We will eat together, and watch some TV. Maybe read a book after that. And my wife may sleep in until lunch because she doesn’t really have to get up for anything.

I have worked hard all my life to get to this point that I can do basically nothing… absolutely nothing… and I love it.

What will you do today?

~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/ 

Resource:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Time+Family/6178813/story.html