Panorama Column: Thank God, It’s Sunday!

Panorama Column: Thank God, It’s Sunday!

Sep 02

Sunday is the blast of cool air you feel when ducking into a mall to escape the afternoon heat. It’s a one-day pass to lethargy beginning with late mornings celebrated by coffee stirred and sipped with a steady hand and a slow-paced heart. It’s flip-flops day where dogs worship at your feet, thrilled in spending quality time with a more relaxed master.

Nearly every family that I know of has a Sunday routine. Sunday is when inter-generational shifts fuse into weekend reunions; when lolas and lolos are allowed to spoil their grandchildren under the crinkled noses of their very own kids. I pity those who spend Sundays as an extension of the workweek, an affirmation of their chosen careers and individual ambitions. When our time is up, none of us will remember the madness of Mondays or slow-moving traffic on Fridays. Our best memories will be of the warm embrace of cozy Sundays that radiate outwards from the bosom of one’s home.

 In my tiny household, Sunday is “mommy-baby” day. My daughter and I spend the morning lazily in bed, with two favored dogs, Picasso and Monet, snuggled between us. Sunday is movie day and I am allowed to pick the movie, which my daughter, Estelle, will have to sit through with me. Last Sunday, we agreed on a mutual choice, the musical “Hairspray”. It was a delightful movie with John Travolta assuming the role of a conservative mom who has yet to enter the “Sixties”. The movie handled with pizzazz the delicate subject of race while imparting musically the kind of courage it took to break down the walls that divided white from black.

 “Hairspray” was perfect for a blessed Sunday. It was colorful, playful, and relevant with talent bursting at the seams. If you had not seen it yet, the time to go is now. Going to the movies is much more pleasant now than it was twenty years or so ago. I love the lush carpet, reclining seats, freshly-popped corn kernels in a variety of flavors, the wide screen with speakers aimed at your heart and that practical cup-holder that makes it easier for hand-holding sessions in the dark.

I remember years ago when cinemas were packed with people standing up and racing for an empty seat before someone else leaps to it from the aisles. I remember sticky floors and misplaced bubble gum and movies that get interrupted occasionally because the next reel was still on its way from a theater close by. I remember people hissing and clapping until the movie picks up from where it left off, a demonstration of people power inside a theater where movies are taken seriously.

 Blessed Sundays mean taking a break from work or school. It means taking a long, deep breath before plunging back into the workforce on surly Mondays when traffic is its usual moody self. It is catching up with the world from the comfort of one’s bed through a book or magazine or a leisurely stroll along the Internet. It means picking up the Manila Bulletin and searching for jobs in the classified ads, and meeting up with Jullie, Zac, Miss Beth, Cirilo and yours truly inside Panorama’s pages.

Sundays remind us to be human. We give our household help their day-off so they can meet with friends and meander around the city. We make peace with the Lord, and come clean before Him whether in church or outside stained windows, no longer as little children wearing white veils with hymnals but as free-spirited adults bearing faith as an invisible shield against the hurts of life. On street corners, we see children begging for alms and our heart breaks – the sound of falling shards more pronounced in the joyful solitude of Sunday.

Yes, thank God for Sundays! It comes four times in a month, right when it is needed. We make up for threatened friendships on a Sunday. We have our hair cut, dyed, and treated on a Sunday. We organize family gatherings on a Sunday. We feed ourselves well on a Sunday. We visit God in His House on Sunday. We do housecleaning on a Sunday. We play our favorite sport on a Sunday. We live life on a Sunday, knowing that the rest of the week is but a few tick-tocks away. Sunday is the pause-button to hit as destiny plays the reel of life.