Fobsvithing on the Sabbath

I was going to start this blog post by pointing out that today is Sunday and I am posting from work, but as it turns out I actually spent my time at work today working, which means that I am now posting from home. The moral of the story, though, is that today is the fifth Sunday in a row that I have not attended church because I was working. Ironically*, the last job I had that required me to work on Sundays was at BYU, where the insistence of dorm-living freshmen on eating daily forced us to open the cafeteria on the Sabbath. Never fear, though: on Fast Sundays we opened only for dinner, ensuring that even the non-Mormons fasted through lunch.

Working at the library on Sundays has led to two realizations:

1. I kind of sort of miss church. The main reason I told FoxyJ I'd attend church with her as long as she wants to keep going is so that she is not stuck in the position of having to deal alone with two children during sacrament meeting, but I'm finding there is value to attending church services even if I don't necessarily subscribe to all the tenets of LDS doctrine. Yesterday as I read an essay by Molly Welker on why she attends Sunstone symposiums (symposia?) despite the fact that she left the Mormon church years ago, I was surprised to find that many of her reasons for attending Sunstone are my reasons for attending church. She says:

That's what Sunstone offers me: a forum where I can work to identify and embrace the elements of my religious training that help me live with greater spiritual awareness and maturity, which, admittedly, is something you can do at Church. But Sunstone also offers me a forum where I can ask if there have been elements of my training as a Mormon that get in the way of spiritual maturity, which is something you really can't do at Church. For me, it's about deciding, as consciously and deliberately as possible, what I want to keep and what I want to lose--and in order to do that, it helps to be around people who recognize some value in Mormonism to begin with, who don't think religion as a whole and Mormonism in particular are a waste of time.

Except in my case, I do find that church is a place I can ask if there are elements of my Mormon training that get in the way of spiritual maturity. I just keep the asking to myself. For the past year I have found myself somewhat distanced from the crowd in church meetings, which takes away from the sense of community I once enjoyed, but it also gives me a cognitive distance that allows me to consider for myself which principles I agree with and which ones I don't. It's easier to build an individual belief system around the framework of an existing group belief system, removing pieces here and adding pieces there, than it would be to start from scratch. As I've been figuring out what I believe over the past year, continuing to attend church has helped me avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

2. I think I believe in the principle of the Sabbath. Working seven days a week (well, working five and going to school the other two, which is in effect the same thing) is too much. I enjoy having a day off to spend with my family. The weekend rotation at the library is such that I'll be off a couple Sundays in November, then all the Sundays in December. I'm going to see what I can do about avoiding the Sunday part of the rotation next quarter. And if I don't want to work on Sundays, it only seems fair of me not to require it of others, so I'm going to make a greater effort to avoid shopping or other activities that make people work on Sundays. Of course, if I don't work Sundays next quarter, then I am asking my coworkers to do so, so maybe I'll have to rethink this. Hm.

3. This realization has nothing to do with working on Sundays, but it is another Mormon principle I'm finding that I agree with. Coffee is the nastiest-tasting beverage on the face of the planet. Why on earth do people drink the stuff voluntarily?


*I'm always nervous to use this word, because no doubt someone will point out that the situation I'm referring to is in fact not ironic in the correct sense of the term; if such be the case, rest assured that, like Alanis Morrisette, I am using the term ironically ironically. Isn't it ironic?