A Weekly Honeymoon
John Utz
July 1, 2001
I grew up in Texas during the era of blue laws-that in-between time when legislative wrangling on the Sabbath's role in the public sector had reached a messy middle ground. Grocery stores were allowed to open on Sundays, but the state legislature created a labyrinthine system of regulations governing what stores could and couldn't sell. Individual items were off limits, and some whole aisles were covered in plastic. Often the logic behind these prohibitions was shrouded as well: for instance, you could buy nails, but you couldn't buy a hammer. Of course, blue laws have largely passed into history, but I'm not sure our present situation is preferable. Not only are shopping malls and other service-sector establishments invariably open on Sunday afternoons, they are full of practicing Christians who have given up the fight of learning how to keep the fourth commandment. We look forward to Friday evenings and Saturdays for a break from the work week, and make increasing use of Sunday afternoons or even mornings as a starting block from which to explode at full stride into the week ahead. There are already plenty of laments for the lost Sabbath, especially within evangelical circles. Clearly, we say, it would be to everyone's benefit to return to a collective sense of weekly time-out. But because painless and immediate access to everything has become the hallmark of our society, it would take some adjustment and patience to sustain a time in which we can't have it our way, right now. And since the complexities of modern life are such that there often literally isn't enough time to complete what's expected of us in a mere six days, the idea of a day of rest, however desirable, seems unrealistic. So our laments tend to remain just ...
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