Sundays
What are your Sundays like? I was taught that they are to be a “Day of Rest”.
I can remember when we did absolutely NOTHING on Sundays. My family allowed me to go to Sunday School and Church even though they did not attend. I went with neighbors or drove myself as I got older. Later, I took my siblings and picked up other kids who wanted a ride. But, when we got back, it was always a BIG lunch my mom had cooked – hot and waiting on the table. The house smelled so good and afterwards, we had complete freedom to do nothing. We could read, or wander around the yard or play or ride our bikes or watch TV. We were NOT going anywhere. Sometimes we had company, but we hardly ever left our house. 
Most people want the weekend to get here, but some people want the weekend to be over. The workaholic and others addicted to the adrenaline rush of a frantic world cannot bear the burden of Sunday’s emptiness. Empty space can be unbearable before we discover the power of silence. Empty places and empty moments are not really empty…they are pregnant with the force….of God, the potential fullness gushing out from empty space, the ever present possibility of a magic moment or miraculous thought. Off the blank page jumps a cosmic summons to write your own name and out of that silence came the opening chords of Beethoven’s Fifth. 
When we try to consume the external to give us a feeling of being filled or avoiding this empty space, we disintegrate, we do not grow. We become needy neurotic people when we look to the world to give us what it cannot. It is imperative that we give time each day, to silence . We must embrace the void instead of resisting it. That is the way of the mystic and the only way we can heal.
In her National # 1 Best Seller, Illuminata, Marianne Williamson suggests we bring prayer into our daily lives, helping us release anger, find forgiveness, achieve intimacy and mend relationships. “No conventional therapy,” she says, “can release us from a deep and abiding psychic pain. Through prayer we find what we cannot find elsewhere: a peace that is not of this world.
It is hard to be still for ten minutes a day to meditate and pray, especially for extreme adrenalin junkies. If you are living in this hyper-drive, light speed 24/7 lifestyle, it may feel strange, uncomfortable and empty. Filling your schedule and your mind with distractions and moving targets can become a bad habit. Break it!!! Take Sunday off. 
“Sunday Kind of Love” is on this video. It’s a nice tribute to Sundays.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
May all the wonderful men who have had the pleasure of being a Daddy, have a special Father’s Day! In case you haven’t noticed, I enjoy taking pictures of architectural detail in buildings and churches. There is a book I recommend, “The Architecture of Happiness”. I found his work meaningful when trying to explain to others why a beautiful historic building deserved to be preserved. There is a feeling of community that is captured inside buildings who have served integral roles in the lives of people. Works of architecture embody certain values and remind us of them as we walk around them. John Ruskin said that a building must do two things. It must shelter us and speak to us, of all the things we need to be reminded of everyday. The following you tube videos are of Alain De Botton ….I watched one, to share with you. Then, #2 and on they go….enjoy!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnzL_RORG8A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhomiOLUlqo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xauWLay_0o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5IEHjdNXOk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xng9g0wjCgU
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