The Best Day

I've had trouble making a decision on this one and so I've decided to decide between my top three contenders as I write.  I will make the case for each and at the end I'm hoping the process will have helped  me decide which is my favorite day of the week.

The contenders are: Thursday, Friday and the Sabbath.

I've loved Thursdays for years.  There's something about being almost to the weekend, but not quite there that's always given me a warm fuzzy feeling.  Thursday was  Must-See-TV night from the Cosby show when I was a kid to ER and Seinfeld in the early days of our marriage to Greys Anatomy and Survivor (until they moved Survivor to Wedsnesdays).  Thursdays I always felt like I could finally begin to unwind.  But these days Thursdays tends to be a little overly busy.  I'm usually making my grocery list, trying to get newsletters or progress reports out for the my students the next day.  Of course this year, I have two back to back free periods during my workday which is great.  That's almost enough to put Thursday back in the top spot.

Friday would also be a contender for my favorite day.  I love that clean house feeling as the Sabbath approaches, the delicious food for supper, and relaxing early hours of the Sabbath.  Some of my favorite memories in the world are of Friday nights.  In Chuuk, sitting out under the stars, the palm trees bathed in moonlight.  Friday night Bible studies at my girlfriend's house, her little apartment aglow with candles. TGIS Friday night celebrations in Saipan, our home packed with our students feasting on heaping bowls of spaghetti and peach cobbler for dessert.  Even here in Columbus, sitting around the dining room table coloring as a family on Friday nights.  Those moments are golden.  The only problem is that of late the house is a disaster as day is dying in the west, food may be some take-out Chinese or pizza, and the edges of the Sabbath are not just guarded--they are outright disregarded as we clean well past sundown and collapse into bed later then we'd like.

And then of course there is Sabbath.  Sabbath is supposed to be the favorite.  "Of all the week the brightest, of all the week the best," as the old hymn says.  And the respite from work and household responsibilities, the inspiring and enriching worship service, the time with family, and the time in nature are wonderful indeed.  High Sabbaths at Pioneer Memorial Church in college listening to Dwight and Bible studies in the afternoon.  Hikes that climaxed in gorgeous vistas in Chuuk and Saipan. And my regular Sabbath afternoon adventures with my sons exploring Sugar Run and the surrounding woods.  We've a long tradition of eating well on the Sabbath too; this Sabbath Korean food, next Sabbath Indian food, and the Sabbath after that an Italian feast.  Delicious!  And lets not neglect the all-important Sabbath afternoon "lay activities."  I have never been a napper but since high school, Sabbath afternoon (and okay sometimes during the Sabbath sermon at church) has been the one time when I'll allow myself to luxuriate in a nice long nap.   An added tradition of recent years has been our weekly Skype with my mom, sister, and nephews in Florida.

And once Sabbath is over, Saturday night has its charms too.  I had the best Sabbath to new week transition while a student missionary on Chuuk. I'd sit on the beach at the Continental Hotel, watching the sunset and listening to Rich Mullins. I'd walk back to the campus in the gathering dark to the tune "How to Grow Up Big and Strong" and begin a new week with a game of Risk with the men of the mission.   Saturday nights have always been fun: movies, date nights, game nights. Even these days, with kids, we still have fun playing games together sometimes or putting on a movie for the boys.  And after the kids go to bed Babs and I have our tradition of watching an episode or two of Grey's Anatomy together.  Sabbath, clearly has to be the winner, right?

But Sabbath is never quite the restful, spiritual oasis that it's supposed to be.  Sabbath morning is typically a disappointment as we consistently fail to accomplish what we want.  We want to have Sabbath lunch prepared so we can eat soon after we get home from church.  We want to get to Sabbath School on time (or even simply get to Sabbath school, period.)  But these things rarely happen.  We wake up late and are slow in getting going. Lunch is either half made or not made at all.  More often than not the kids miss Sabbath School (and are always late on the rare occasion we make it).  Church services typically go long and it's hard to pay attention to the sermon while keeping two restless kids from causing a disturbance.  We get home late, and often don't eat until 3 in the afternoon.  The nap is not a luxury but a necessity and is often fitful as I'm repeatedly awakened by the boys involved in one calamity or another.  And the thing about the walk?  It's something I inexplicably dread.  I always wish I didn't have to do it and I'm always secretly glad when we are invited to lunch at someones house or have some other commitment so that we can't do the walk.  I don't know why I feel this way especially since I always end up enjoying the walks and they are among my most precious memories of time with my children.  Saturday nights are often disappointing these days as well.  The kids go to bed so late and there's usually a mountain of tasks waiting for us on Sunday, so we find we don't want to go to bed too late ourselves. And so Babs and I skip our weekly TV date too.  Overall, Sabbath has become the new Sunday in that it is a day defined by it's disappointments. (Sunday has long been my least favorite day because I almost never spend it the way I want to or the way I feel it should be spent.  I dislike Sunday so much I once wrote a short story about it!)

So there you have it.  Three great days that each fail to live up their potential in some way.  And now having written about them all, I think I can say the winner of the Best Day of the Week is. . . . .

Friday. 

Sabbath is really my favorite day, but it's the earliest hours of the Sabbath, before the inevitable disappointment of the main portion of the day, that I love the best.  Even on a Friday that doesn't meet expectations, it's still early enough that there's hope for the rest of the weekend.  And when Friday works the way it's supposed to, no other day can come close.