Sunday Into Monday

I grew up thinking that Mondays were the real start of a new week. It was only as an adult, moving more into an awareness of sacred time, that I discovered what an important and necessary part of my Christian journey Sunday-as-the-first-day-of-the-week truly was. I need Sundays, different from the rhythm of any other day, different because I gather with "all the saints" to pray and worship, different because I truly try to find good resting time (even if only in snatches in this busy season of parish ministry and constant teaching). Sundays launch me into an awareness of new beginnings in a way that Monday morning never did. And thankfully, Sundays also help prepare me to face the beginning of a new work and school week.

Because Mondays have newness about them too. We face five days of a similarly patterned rhythm in our household, where we all follow (even if loosely) work and schooling schedules. I spend time on Sunday evening looking over lesson plans for the week: setting discussion forums for my online students, seeing what I need to read for teaching preparation, beginning to read through papers posted over the weekend (reading Hippolytus and Tertullian this week, responding to papers on early asceticism).

I also work on lesson plans for the sweet girl. What will we cover this week in history, science? How can I find more creative ways to engage her in narration? What's the new spelling list look like? What part of a sentence will we be learning to diagram? Where can I sneak more poetry into our learning time? Are we tackling anything new in math? (Two digit times one digit in multiplication this week...)

And who are we especially called to pray for and serve this week?

In a way, Monday is like the second new start of the week, but it's fueled by the first new start on Sunday.

All of which makes me glad that every day, really, is a new start with God, a fresh beginning. Every day, no matter what the calendar says, is new and a gift from him...and crammed fresh-full of brand spanking new mercies. A blank piece of paper on which to begin another chapter of the story. A page on which we can sketch a new drawing in our fumbling lines.