The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

I generally loved Sundays when we were in Vienna. There were a lot of extenuating circumstances that we had to work through, which is why we didn't meet every Sunday as a team until February of last year--a year and a half after we first arrived. Once we were meeting every Sunday, we meet in one another's homes. This had it's own challenges and brought about it's own sort of stress, especially at first. The tendency--natural, though it was--is to take big church (i.e., building-based, cathedral-based church) and try to shove it into a living room setting rather than to discover the organic living room worship experience. It's not an easy adjustment for people who've known only the building-based church. But, overall, I really enjoyed Sundays.

The expectation of wearing dress clothes was certainly absent. I don't really dress up now that I'm back in the States, but most Sunday's I wear a quasi-dress shirt with buttons. In Vienna, I'd wear whatever I felt like wearing. Usually jeans and a white T-shirt. Sometimes I'd go in my overalls. We always took our shoes off at the door, as is the Austrian custom, sat down on living room furniture and enjoyed a cup of coffee, just talking with the other people there. It was very laid back. I like that laid back atmosphere over the formality of the lecture hall.

But more than that, Sunday was just peaceful in Vienna. When the weather was nice, we enjoyed a walk from the meeting place (when it wasn't at our house) to the bus. Sometimes we walked all the way to Du Chen--a great Chinese restaurant in Vienna's 22nd district. On a side note, last Sunday we went to a Chinese restaurant in OKC to try and recapture some of that Vienna tone and it was a miserable failure!

We'd get home in the early afternoon. I'd walk Sharkdog then just relax throughout the afternoon and into the evening. The weather was normally nice well into October. We liked to be in a place where it was comfortable with the windows open. I liked the fall because I'd stay up late watching American football.

I find myself missing Sundays a lot. It was so relaxed compared to a Sunday in OKC. Not just church, but the atmosphere of the whole city was different. Sunday hold little difference from Monday in OKC, but not so in Vienna, where it is generally understood to be a day for leisure, recreation, and dare I say, peace.

I miss a lot of things about Vienna, but Sunday is what I miss most.

P.S. If you're in Vienna and interested in good Chinese food, you can find Du Chen tear-dropped on my Vienna map:
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