Soul-sapping monotony, holidays and the Lord’s Day

The Transport Secretary Grant Schapps’ advice that it was ‘too soon’ for people to start booking summer holidays in February, either in the UK or abroad, came six weeks too late for my family.

Surely no government can cancel Christmas and not expect middle-aged women across the country to immediately start planning their next opportunity to fulfil every mother’s dream: Having All their Grown-up Children In One Place and Everyone Having a Lovely Time (or at least, trying to).

Mr Schapps’ comments came the day after England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van Tam warned against making ‘elaborate’ summer holiday plans. ‘I can’t give people a proper answer at this point because we don’t yet have the data,’ said JVT. ‘It’s just too early.’

Promises...

‘Too soon…’, ‘Too early…’. On the one hand, it was all perfectly reasonable. Despite clamours for the government to guarantee that the current lockdown will be the last, most of us are realistic enough to know that such a guarantee wouldn’t mean very much. (Case in point: Lockdown 1, Lockdown 2, Lockdown 3). The Prime Minister’s long-awaited roadmap out of lockdown announced at the end of February has more question marks and caveats over it than the route to Cornwall on a Saturday in August. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ ‘Hard to say, kids – it depends. Here, have another Werther’s Original.’

So yes, not making any promises around summer holidays is entirely reasonable.

Trouble is, human beings are not entirely reasonable. Man does not live by logic alone. We live by hope. And we’ll never be really happy in the present without something to look forward to. Holidays are about more than a week on the coast with the family. They are about creating that precious cycle of anticipation, experience, and satisfied remembrance. This is the stuff that gives shape to our year.

Soul-sapping monotony

Which is why lockdown has felt soul-sappingly monotonous for so many of us. If every day is spent within the same four walls, what gives shape to our weeks? And if every week is spent doing the same things, what gives shape to our years?

We weren’t designed for a shapeless existence. When God set up his Old Testament community in a way that would promote Israel’s flourishing, he built in seasons and cycles and feasting and celebrations. But these weren’t just about giving God’s people something to look forward to in the future; more importantly, they gave the Israelites cause to remember God’s faithfulness to them in the past, and His covenant commitment to them in the present.

In 2021, it’s worth acknowledging that not everyone can afford a summer holiday. And it was not ever thus. In fact, for centuries on these isles, it was the church calendar which provided the shape to the year. Rather than work being punctuated by holidays, work was punctuated by holy days which – at their best – lifted their people’s eyes beyond the here and now in more ways than one.

In the absence of weekends away, and concerts and parties, maybe 2021 is an opportunity to tie our cycle of anticipation to a different rhythm – to days which lift our eyes from the monotony of lockdown by lifting our eyes to glorious gospel realities. The most obvious place to start is with the Lord’s Day. How could you make Sundays feel special so that they’re the high point of the week – a day which is both genuinely fun and spiritually refreshing (not that the two are at odds) as you enjoy the rest Christ has won for you?

What is Candlemas anyway?

And there’s nothing to stop you exploring some of the more obscure aspects of liturgical living if you fancy it. Back at the start of the year, in the absence of any other plans, my housemates and I populated our sparse calendar with all the major feast days and decided we’d go all in. So far, so good. (To be honest, we never really got to the bottom of what Candlemas was about, but we ate fajitas by candlelight just for fun.)

With Easter Week just around the corner, Christians have an opportunity to celebrate Christ’s resurrection afresh. Why not make some plans for how you’ll do that that are worth looking forward to? It may well be more refreshing than a week in Cornwall in August.