Holidays and Holy Days.

I've been thinking, as I can barely open my eyes this Monday after the holiday weekend, and feel as though I've been a glutton, about holidays. And more still, about Holy Days.

I think about the calendar and rhythm I live in. 12 months in a year. With 5 day work weeks. With 2 day weekends. 1 day for doing whatever I want. And 1 day for church and rest. Every month or two, there's a three day weekend. Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Martin Luther King Day, maybe a good Friday, President's Day, or Columbus Day thrown in. And every few months we get longer breaks, Thanksgiving, Christmas, a vacation of some sort in the summer. And then the spattering of holidays that just provide fun. Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, New Year's, Halloween, Father's Day, Mother's Day, a birthday, an anniversary, a few just because parties, and there's the year.

And then, I got to thinking about the liturgical calendar. But, also the Jewish calendar. I started wondering what it would be like, not to orient myself around 3-day weekends, vacations, and just because parties, but to orient myself to a calendar like this, which, of course, was and is meant to orient me toward God and the gospel.

Of course there are pitfalls, but if there is one thing I've learned in life it's that there are always pitfalls. But, holiness and being set apart, these things have an important to them, or we wouldn't be called to them. Pitfalls and all, God doesn't ask things of us in vain.

So, I wonder. How we do this. How every part of our life is pointed toward rhythming with God. How we get out of what everyone else says rest and work looks like.

But, I can't wonder too long, because the holiday has made me tired. And something doesn't seem right about that.