Hartley Neita, Contributor
UP TO 50 years or so ago, Sundays, Ash Wednesdays, Good Fridays, and Easter Sundays were holy days, even though they were designated public holidays.
It might have not been the same in Kingston, but in my part of the country God was given nuff respect and special manners on these days.
There was a human hush at dawn. The main sounds came before the sun crawled the eastern gray of the sky from the roosters in the 50 or so backyards in our village calling to each other. And if we knew their language they might well have been praying to Him. Birds then waved their wings as they flew over the tree tops, their rhythm a series of amens.
In our homes there was a peaceful majesty of movement. Children went outside to play the hide-and seek game played by hens with their eggs. Breakfast was one penny per pound saltfish, ackees and roasted breadfruit picked from our own trees from yesterday - for even picking fruit was not to be done on a holy day - and coffee or chocolate tea or bush tea.
Children were then sponged clean in the bath pan. Adults then washed themselves, and with the sound of the bells ringing their anthem of worship families walked together to church.
There were no public address systems in the churches then. Parson had strong voices which reached every corner of the building, but not loud enough to be heard blaring outside.
Gatherings
After service the men gathered under a tree in the churchyard talking about the happenings of the week. In the 1930s the topic was of the immortalising of George Headley at Lords, and in the next decade it was about the progress of the war against Germany. Hitler was the Satan, while Churchill was given the status of saviour (common "s") and not Saviour (capital "s").
The women, too, were in their groups talking of family achievements or walking through the church cemetery and offering silent prayers for departed relatives.
One by one families walked home. The afternoons were spent in meditation together, or quietly alone. Mothers and fathers sat in their rocking chairs, side by side, and rarely spoke, yet hearing each other's thoughts. Children knew they were to be seen and not heard.
Good Fridays were the most holy of the days of worship. Ash Wednesday the beginning of 40 days and forty nights of fasting from the favourite things adults knew were bad for them, like smoking and drinking rum.
For those who were not Seventh Day Adventists, Saturdays were for cricket and football and horse racing. Easter Mondays, New Year's days were for excursions to the country or the city (Kingston) to enjoy the Dunn's River Falls or the beach of Al Terry, cricket matches at Glenroy Oval, or picnics and jerk pork at Boston Beach.
Nothing special
Today, these holy days are just another day. Cricket, not even Senior Cup matches, which were forbidden by the various boards of control in former times, are now played on Sundays. Here in Jamaica, our carnival is now a Sunday pleasure. Dominoes are clapped on shop piazzas. Stores and bars are open for shopping on Sundays. Clubs blast their music through loudspeakers placed outside their walls. Except for the few hours of sponsored religious programmes, we can dance to oldies and dancehall music on our holy days.
We even had days of fasting and reconciliation, enacted into law as public holidays to remember tragic events like the Port Royal earthquake and the destruction caused by hurricanes. All those have become mere notations in our history.
We may boast that we have more churches per square mile in our island, and tents are erected every day, but we need to replace God in our homes and communities once more and not just leave Him inside the church buildings. From "once upon a time" let us make it "now is the time".
