Those of you who know me well, know that I am not what you would call a religious person. I was born and raised Jewish, but the motivation for getting Bat Mitvah’d was more about the gifts and the party and less about becoming obligated to observe the  commandments. I don’t belong to a Temple, have an aversion to people that proselytize, and believe that whatever you believe is “between you and your God”, to borrow a quote from a Muslim Scholar I know. I think religion is a very personal thing, everyone has the right to worship as they chose, and I really wish that that people would stop imposing their own religious views on those who think and worship differently.

So, titling today’s blog with a bible quote might seem a bit hypocritical of me. Nevertheless, I thought it had validity in a secular sense, because so few of us seem to rest anymore, not even on a Sunday.

Of course I can’t remember the full quote word for word, and I took some liberties with it, changing the pronoun from masculine to feminine, but there is a method to my madness.

You see, the men I know are much better at resting on the seventh day than the women I know. Many American men seem to think the quote should be amended to, “And on the seventh day, God created football”, and therefore the divine mandate is to wear groove in the sofa with their tushies. The modern American woman, on the other hand, tends to use Sunday as a day to catch up on everything she didn’t have time to do the week prior, and to try to get a leg-up on the week to come.

Her day looks something like this:

Got up early and started a load of laundry, made a pot of coffee, took the dog out for a walk, came home and cooked breakfast, put away last night’s dishes, served and ate breakfast, washed breakfast dishes, put wet laundry in dryer. Dropped kids off at soccer practice, took dog to groomer, came back to cheer kids on, collected kids after game and went back to groomer to pick up freshly washed dog, took kids out for lunch, went grocery shopping, dropped off oldest at friend’s house, took youngest and dog home. Made 3 dozen cupcakes for school bake sale with “help” of youngest, cleaned up the kitchen and made youngest change her clothes before the dog got sick licking the frosting off of her. Put another  load of laundry in washing machine (including frosting covered clothes), folded first load. Went back to kitchen and washed dog who just got back from groomer’s in sink. Washed sink, and then washed and chopped  ingredients for dinner. Threw everything in crock pot. Threw second load of laundry in dryer, collected youngest and dog and headed out again to pick up oldest. Stopped at gas station, ATM and pet store on the way home. Served dinner, cleaned up after dinner, helped kids with homework, tucked them into bed. Made their lunches for school the next day. Folded second load of laundry, threw in a third. Went over presentation for work on Monday. Folded and put away third load of laundry. Went to bed late.

Sound familiar? Not exactly the definition of “rest”, is it? So the question is, if God could create the world in six days, and then rest on the seventh, why can’t we? And the answer is, I don’t know. I do know that despite leaps and bounds in technology and time-saving devices, we seem to work harder and rest less than ever before. And maybe the she(s) need to take a hint from the he(s) and find an excuse to sit down and rest at least for a couple of hours every Sunday. I may not have an answer to why we don’t seem to find the time to take a day of rest, but I do have a perfect excuse for us to sit down this evening and wear our own tushie-shaped groove into the sofa. The fourth episode of Downton Abbey begins and it’s two hours long. Let’s hope it goes into overtime. I think God would want it that way. She’s a big fan.