when i was a kid, sunday afternoon naps were a regular fixture in our home. the whole family would go to church — all services, of course, including sunday school; then home for “dinner”. in my home, the sunday main meal was called dinner, and our evening meal (much lighter) was called “supper”. sunday evening is the only meal in our home referred to as supper.

after the dinner dishes were washed and put away, it was nap time. everyone to their own bedrooms for an hour or so.

i don’t remember exactly when this practice ended in our home. my guess is, it faded out when my older sisters wouldn’t tolerate it anymore.

i hardly ever nap these days, other than a bit on my plane flights. but once-in-a-while, a sunday afternoon nap really feels about perfect, as it did today. i was pretty tired from my weekend travels, and had a hard time staying awake during the sermon this morning. so, after lunch, i put in earplugs and covered my head with a pillow and fell off into slumberland. i’m not a 10-minute napper. when i nap, it’s AT LEAST for an hour. today was almost two hours.

there’s something almost liturgical about a sunday afternoon nap. it’s the transition point between one week and the next. it’s the “putting to bed” of what was; and, upon waking, the beginning of what might be. in my childhood home, sunday evenings, after the nap, were always low-key: it was one of the only times we might watch tv together, or play a game. it was low-key in a “lay low and conserve energy, because tomorrow morning we hit the streets hard, soldier” kind of way. tonite, my family has ordered carry-out chinese (i’m going to pick it up in a minute), and are going to watch a rented dvd together — the legend of zorro. tomorrow, we’re back to our various realities. the nap, though — that was the hinge-point of my weekend; or, more accurately, the hinge-point between two weeks.