Text: Han­na-Ma­ria Jur­mu

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

On­ly some of the days in our uni­que and va­lu­ab­le li­ves are ”holy days”. For most of our li­ves we toil away at our dai­ly tasks and du­ties. We work hard from day to day and es­pe­ci­al­ly hard be­fo­re a ho­li­day, so that we can then ful­ly en­joy and ap­p­re­ci­a­te the free­dom from la­bor. Sla­ving away, I would call it!

Each of us pro­bab­ly pon­ders at some stage of their life why we work as hard as we do. What amount of work is good and ne­ces­sa­ry? What is my real goal if I work all the time? Could I have ot­her va­lu­es apart from wor­king cons­tant­ly and trying to earn as much mo­ney as I can?

The Ca­tec­hism exp­lains the me­a­ning of the third com­mand­ment, ”Re­mem­ber to keep holy the Lord’s Day”, like this: ”God has gi­ven us both work and rest. Rest al­so inc­lu­des things ot­her than sleep and bo­di­ly rest. Pau­sing be­fo­re God is the dee­pest me­a­ning of the day of rest.”

”Pau­sing be­fo­re God”, says the Ca­tec­hism. The se­cu­lar world pau­ses be­fo­re a num­ber of things, but less and less of­ten be­fo­re God. It is im­por­tant to think about one­self and one’s per­so­nal life and to pon­der about the things that make one pau­se. It is im­por­tant to pau­se be­fo­re God on both week­da­ys and ho­li­da­ys.

Hou­se ow­ners usu­al­ly have a lot of cho­res. Last spring we spent some time wor­king on our fi­re­wood sup­p­ly. We wor­ked hard and were sa­tis­fied with our­sel­ves when we be­gan the day’s fi­re­wood pro­ject right af­ter the wor­king hours. We just chan­ged in­to our wor­king clot­hes and star­ted chop­ping and stac­king wood. And we did that on many, many days in a row.

The work did not seem overw­hel­ming­ly mun­da­ne. It was mo­no­to­nous in a nice way, but one al­so had to keep an eye on the gro­wing stack to keep it straight. The we­at­her was nice with a whiff of spring in the air. Se­a­gul­ls were squ­ea­ling in the sky, ta­king my thoughts to far-away mar­kets at the sea co­ast…

Or­di­na­ry dai­ly cho­res are al­wa­ys part of our life. Some pe­op­le find them so self-evi­dent that they tack­le them wit­hout even thin­king or ma­king any spe­ci­al ef­fort. Some ot­hers find them chal­len­ging and re­qui­re a mo­ment of in­ter­nal tal­king-to and en­cou­ra­ge­ment to grap­p­le with them.

Eve­ry­bo­dy can de­fi­ne their per­so­nal re­qui­re­ments for week­ly cle­a­ning or spring cle­a­ning. (One is comp­le­te­ly free to choo­se the way to re­mo­ve the cob­webs in the cor­ner. One can do it pro­per­ly as part of the big spring-cle­a­ning day or just swipe at them with a cloth in pas­sing. Or just le­a­ve them be.)

It is ac­tu­al­ly qui­te fes­ti­ve and al­most holy to see how so­me­o­ne ta­kes care of their hou­se plants or gar­den. Or plans their choi­ce of knit­ting wool for a pat­tern. Or pre­pa­res a meal. Or or­ga­ni­zes their hand tools on a rack in their shed. Or puts a plas­ter on a scratch in a child’s knee. Alt­hough we have six week­da­ys and then on­ly one ”holy day”, the six week­da­ys can be full of things with a touch of ho­li­ness. Such as the flight and squ­eal of a gull.