the rhythm of the week

As we push our rock up the hill every day this year, it's been hard to hold onto the wonderful rhythm of the church year. Feed the babies, fall back asleep, feed the babies, fall back asleep, feed the babies, don't go back to sleep . . . try to love the children, take care of the children, make eye contact with all the children (hard when there are four sets of eyes to look into, and you have only one set yourself), answer all the questions, while making sure that those babies still get fed, and loved, and changed, and snuggled . . . and make sure to love and snuggle the older ones too . . . and teach, admonish, and love some more . . . it's not a bad life, in fact, it's better than I ever thought it could be, but it's like body-surfing: all you feel is the wave, with the water filling your eyes, nose and mouth, you have no sense of the larger ocean the tide is pulsing through.

But I think, in the midst of this, I'm getting the feel for an older rhythm, for the rhythm of the week. It's the same day, over and over, it feels, but then there's Sunday, and Sunday lifts us up.

It's a pause, a breath. Not that every Sunday is a sinecure. Last Sunday was awful. But even that bad break in the everyday routine led to new insight about what we were doing wrong in our day-to-day life, and this whole week has been better because of the fight we had Sunday.

(My husband and I have good fights, I think. We can always feel them coming, building like that sullenness in the air before a thunderstorm, and they're never fun, but we're always so much easier with each other afterwards, having said all we needed to say, and having come to a better place for the storm. It's always like a clear, rainswept day after a good fight.)

But there being Sunday changes everything. We stop doing what we do every day and remember why we do what we do every day. I can feed those babies . . . because Jesus feeds me. I can sleep . . . and I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. I can meet my childrens' gaze . . . because the Lord sees me. I have these blessings . . . at the Lord's hand. Tomorrow is still coming . . . but the Lord will be Lord tomorrow also.


God instituted the seven day week in Creation itself. It changed forever, became itself, when Christ rose Sunday morning. So every week begins with hope, and every day's work is done in a universe filled with order, filled also with creative beauty.


I am almost glad to lose sight of the church year - for, ha! a season - to learn the beauty of the church week.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell