Bookmark: The grace of Sunday morning reading

The scene used to be familiar, replicated on Sunday mornings in nearly every house on nearly every street.

A fat Sunday newspaper, divided into sections, shared among the adults in the house. "Pass me the sports section, please?"

There was good coffee in familiar mugs. There might be warm toast, or breakfast may be over. Some pastor's sermon was already fading into memory. But there was the wonderful crinkling sound of newsprint being folded or turned. The day had become both simpler and larger, more complex. This was reading time. This was the space where world affairs as well as a new idea for canning apricots could be considered. And there was conversation prompted by the reading.

Let me say that again. The news could be considered. Not just received. Not just glossed. Reading the Sunday paper was a nearly sacred act. There was time for thinking with both head and heart.

The Sunday paper was huge because people had the time to read it. Whatever was coming next in the day was so far away it didn't press upon the morning. And this lack of something next was essential. We are consumed with planning and anticipation. We seem to live half a day or a week in front of ourselves. Sunday reading was open-ended and provided the space for nuance to be recognized and welcomed.

My theologian friends tell me about the ancient Celtic notion of Thin Places, places where this world and the next world, the spiritual world, are in proximity. For the Celts this would have been lakes and rivers, groves of trees, caves, oceans. Places where, if you listened, you would hear some inkling from the other side.

And along with the notion of Thin Places comes the notion of Thick Time. This is when our perception of time slows. Life in slow motion. Buddhists might call this mindfulness. Christians and others might call it meditation. Whatever it may be, it's a being in the moment that lingers.

Fast forward a few decades. Sunday morning in my house. There is light coming through the windows and George Winston or Jay Ungar coming from an Alexa on the corner of my desk. I sit in a large chair, a tablet in my lap. There is no crinkle of newsprint, but there is a screen that brings me the Star Tribune, the New York Times, the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. It also brings me the New Yorker, the Atlantic, National Geographic and Outside.

Importantly, it brings, without bulk or weight, the back issues, too. With good coffee in a familiar mug, I can linger over an idea. I can pause and reflect. I can follow links. With a touch of my finger I can return to something I read months ago. I compare. I resist. I agree. There is nothing calling me away. What I hear is inklings from all sorts of other sides.

Sunday Morning is not a Thin Place, but it can be a Thin Situation. I can get close to more than just the surface of an idea. I can hear those other voices. And Sunday morning can be Thick Time, too.

Today I am reading about Afghanistan. I could just as well be reading a novel, a book of poems, a travel adventure, a biography. My own feelings and ideas are both strong and contradictory. I know what has happened. I want to linger over, I want to understand, why. I have a responsibility to resist the simplicity of bluster and hype in favor of depth and honesty. Honesty is a very wide net.

Of course, every Sunday morning comes to a close. There might be football to watch. There might be necessary preparations for the week to come. But we need to remember that Sunday reading is possible. We can seek it out. We can linger. To paraphrase St. Benedict, we can withdraw from the world in order to change it.

W. Scott Olsen is a writer and professor in Moorhead, Minn.