Black Friday, Thanksgiving and The Sabbath

It's Black Friday. Yippee. Not.

I considered a career in retailing at one point in my life. I took classes in the then-new Skaggs Institute of Retailing Management at BYU, and I did a retailing internship. I actually enjoyed the work, and it was my first introduction to business courses (I was an English major in search of some employability).

And I did work in retailing for a few years. I had my wife's grandmother trying to coax us into pursuing a career in retailing in Mesa; she told us that area would grow exponentially over the years and there would surely be lots of opportunity. And I would have loved to go to Mesa, but my lovely wife was not enamoured of such hot summers and non-existant winters. She's a four-season person.

In the end, I did not stay in retailing. There were lots of reasons, but one of them was Black Friday. And not so much Black Friday but the whole holiday shopping thing. It meant that every holiday season I would be working and not spending time with my family. And that would be true for the Thanksgiving to Christmas period and the post-Christmas returns period.

In another phase of my career development, I was working on a PhD in Theatre History (I never said this was a linear progression). I had finished my MA in Theatre History at BYU and was encouraged by my committee to pursue the PhD elsewhere, which made sense to me. When I arrived at the school of my choice (my selection criteria was particularly poor: I wanted a school that would accept me) I found that I was at odds with my program in a number of ways. My academic interest was different from my adviser's. My program's choice of plays in that year's season were not to my liking (and some were downright offensive to me, despite my rather less-than-prudish taste). And then there was the Sunday work. Sunday rehearsals and performance were the rule. The work on the annual summer Shakespeare festival was the bright spot for me, but by the time that rolled around, I had made the decision to leave the program.

It occured to me that if I taught pretty much anywhere but BYU, I'd be working Sundays at least part of the year as part of my academic duties. It caused me to reflect on what I really wanted from my life. My long-term goals were really pretty traditional. My lovely wife and I wanted a nice family, reared in the gospel with church activity complementing our lives. And I struggled to see how Sunday work would fit in that plan.

So I walked away from my PhD program. The Sunday work was not the only reason as I mentioned, but it was one of several.

I am the first to acknowledge that others may make a different choice from mine in the same situation, and that may be ok for them and for their family. I have a number of good friends who are in positions that require Sunday work; they are faithful, participating Latter-day Saints in all levels of church activity and leadership. But I decided I was not comfortable being one of them.

I'm happy to say that in my present 25-year career, I can count the times I've missed church because of work on one hand. That's not a badge of honor for comparison with others, but it's rather a blessing to me. I'm grateful that I was able to find a place in which I could honor the Sabbath in the way that is important to me.

And I'm really glad I didn't have to work at a retail outlet today.

The role of rest

Kelowna, BC

Last week I took a real vacation, something I haven’t done for some time – a get-on-a-plane-and-go-far-away-just-to-relax vacation. My lovely wife and our youngest daughter headed to the Pacific Northwest where we took in breath-taking scenery and visited with family members. I did not take my work laptop on the trip, so I wasn’t even tempted to check my email. I did not blog. We visited, hiked, ate at cool restaurants (including the one where one of my sons works), slept in a bit, read, played games and generally relaxed. I still tried to honor my diet, and to exercise each day, and I came away from the week pretty close to where I started it, weight-wise, so that was all good, too. I got close to eight hours of sleep a night, something I almost never do in a normal work week.

What has this got to do with the point of my blog, which is to share my Mormon experience? Only this: there’s value in rest.

The Sabbath as a day of rest is a regular part of my religious experience. I avoid working on Sunday (and am fortunate to work in a profession that does not require it); I also avoid other activities on Sunday that detract from the spirit of that day for me. We encourage our children not to do homework on Sunday (though in the end we know they will have to learn their own lessons in that regard). It’s not that my Sunday is a day of inactivity: we do go to church, often have choir practice, and sometimes welcome home teachers into our home (I try not to home teach on Sunday unless one of my families prefers that we visit that day). We try to spend time together as a family, especially on Sunday evening which is family game night at our home.

That day of rest is a valuable part of my week, just as this past week’s vacation was valuable in helping me to rejuvenate myself a bit. Although I was always just as happy for President Kimball’s advice that napping is an appropriate Sabbath activity as the next member of my priesthood quorum, I acknowledge that the rest the Sabbath provides is far more than physical. The spiritual rest from the work of my world is as valuable as the nap.

Yes, we have to cope with the kids on Sunday. When we had lots of little Bedlamites running around, Sundays were a real challenge; we tried not to rely too heavily on those Living Scripture videos, but our kids knew those stories very, very well... But as our kids have grown older, we’ve all worked into the Sunday patterns that work pretty well for us. Having afternoon church helps us with our kids at their present ages (where sleeping in is preferred to midday naps; I know younger families would prefer it the other way around).

We still have a big meal on Sunday – not one that requires lots of fussy preparation, but one that is something to share with one another, another reason to gather around the table, and then to linger there a little longer than we normally would on a weeknight. And the preparation and cleanup are family affairs, too.

Many years ago, when our oldest son played basketball in a tournament on a Sunday, I mentioned to another parent there that we normally didn’t like to do that sort of thing on Sunday. She asked what we did instead. I was not really prepared for her question, and I mumbled something about family time. (She, who attended the tournament with her husband and all her kids, while I was there with Son #1 only…)

I would answer that question differently today. I’d say, “Sunday is an important day for us. It’s a day we can attend church together and then spend the day together as a family. We try to do things on Sunday that are more restful and peaceful than other days. We try to run around less and simply to have peaceful time together.”

I hope your Sundays are peaceful.