You know when you look on a map of the world and you only see nothing more than a dot representing the size and location of your island home, it can be quite disconcerting at first. Nonetheless, St Vincent and the Grenadines has been a comparatively tiny island that held much golden humanitarian values for its approximately 100 000 inhabitants over the years.
Sunday mornings were a special time of family, friends, food and faith that sowed some irreplaceable seeds of universal values within us while we wee young and growing up.
I can still recall that on a Sunday morning very much like this one, as children we would awake to the sound of our parents in their bedroom having their extended morning devotions. If you paid attention long enough you would really think it was an early version of the Sunday service which we would all later attend. Daddy would be quoting scriptures and giving his interpretations and mini exhortations pretty much as a pastor would do. My mother would be the song and worship leader. They would go back and forth between singing and reading of scriptures.
When the sun began to knock on our windows all of us children would be told to awake at that time. Sleeping in after sunrise was never allowed it seems. So beginning with my oldest brother, we would each have to kneel at our bedside and "say the Our Father Prayer" and a prayer dictated by either parent. Our parents would not leave the bedroom until they themselves had prayed; this was the time that we would hear our mother praying extensively for each of us in the family.
Sunday breakfast was also a uniquely anticipated time in the family as well. After Saturday grocery shopping in town mommy would have brought back some tasty bread and condiments which would be our Sunday treats. It was the norm that you ate meals on Sundays that you would not usually consume during the rest of the week. Back in those growing years the kitchen would have been a wooden structure separate from the "wood house" as we called it.
My mother and my sole sister would proceed to the kitchen and commence the making of chocolate tea, flavoured with cinnamon and ginger. I always had my chocolate volcano hot--never liked tea at any other temperature. My mother would then prepare the bread and fried fish or other protein servings which would accompany the bread.
During all this time, my brothers and I would be sweeping the yard or washing the dishes from Saturday evening dinner. Sometimes as well, we would have to be about the backyard and even the garden collecting wood or pieces of dried sticks to be used for roasting breadfruit, if that was on the menu for that day.
By mid morning all movements would be to get to church. At one time we attended church with our parents but that changed because their church was located so far from where we lived. So as children we would walk across to a nearby village to participate in Sunday School and later on morning worship service. It was an adventure getting to church, especially on wet mornings. You see, the path to the church was really a shortcut--a dirt track through shrubs and uncultivated lands. We also had to cross a river by jumping across stones. To slip from a stone because of its slippery surface was to have your "Sunday best" shoes, socks and pants foot drenched in the muddy water of the river.
But through it all we learned some lessons in those days that are still embedded in us as adults today. I, along with my siblings, would have been left with a heritage of prayer and motivation to keep working. Because living conditions may not be the ideal today does not mean that tomorrow will not be better. We all must keep on moving.
Another thing that stands out about our Sundays long ago is the neighbourly sharing of Sunday lunches. Food was always in abundance, and we always knew what the neighbours were eating, and vice versa.
Sundays were the quietest of days. All commercial and business activities ceased for that day. Public transportation was at a halt. Shops were closed. Loud music was silenced. Farmers stayed out of their mountain lands. t was the Lord's Day. It was family day. It is now that we are all grown up and gone physically apart, mommy is in heaven, and yet life goes on that I appreciate the significance of those old and seemingly insignificant Sundays back then. Family and good parenting are essential inputs into the life of a growing child.
It is my hope that my readers are able to appreciate their own Sundays and other occasions when their family is sowing good things in their lives that will help them to stand productively as future adults.
Sunday mornings were a special time of family, friends, food and faith that sowed some irreplaceable seeds of universal values within us while we wee young and growing up.
I can still recall that on a Sunday morning very much like this one, as children we would awake to the sound of our parents in their bedroom having their extended morning devotions. If you paid attention long enough you would really think it was an early version of the Sunday service which we would all later attend. Daddy would be quoting scriptures and giving his interpretations and mini exhortations pretty much as a pastor would do. My mother would be the song and worship leader. They would go back and forth between singing and reading of scriptures.
When the sun began to knock on our windows all of us children would be told to awake at that time. Sleeping in after sunrise was never allowed it seems. So beginning with my oldest brother, we would each have to kneel at our bedside and "say the Our Father Prayer" and a prayer dictated by either parent. Our parents would not leave the bedroom until they themselves had prayed; this was the time that we would hear our mother praying extensively for each of us in the family.
Sunday breakfast was also a uniquely anticipated time in the family as well. After Saturday grocery shopping in town mommy would have brought back some tasty bread and condiments which would be our Sunday treats. It was the norm that you ate meals on Sundays that you would not usually consume during the rest of the week. Back in those growing years the kitchen would have been a wooden structure separate from the "wood house" as we called it.
My mother and my sole sister would proceed to the kitchen and commence the making of chocolate tea, flavoured with cinnamon and ginger. I always had my chocolate volcano hot--never liked tea at any other temperature. My mother would then prepare the bread and fried fish or other protein servings which would accompany the bread.
During all this time, my brothers and I would be sweeping the yard or washing the dishes from Saturday evening dinner. Sometimes as well, we would have to be about the backyard and even the garden collecting wood or pieces of dried sticks to be used for roasting breadfruit, if that was on the menu for that day.
By mid morning all movements would be to get to church. At one time we attended church with our parents but that changed because their church was located so far from where we lived. So as children we would walk across to a nearby village to participate in Sunday School and later on morning worship service. It was an adventure getting to church, especially on wet mornings. You see, the path to the church was really a shortcut--a dirt track through shrubs and uncultivated lands. We also had to cross a river by jumping across stones. To slip from a stone because of its slippery surface was to have your "Sunday best" shoes, socks and pants foot drenched in the muddy water of the river.
But through it all we learned some lessons in those days that are still embedded in us as adults today. I, along with my siblings, would have been left with a heritage of prayer and motivation to keep working. Because living conditions may not be the ideal today does not mean that tomorrow will not be better. We all must keep on moving.
Another thing that stands out about our Sundays long ago is the neighbourly sharing of Sunday lunches. Food was always in abundance, and we always knew what the neighbours were eating, and vice versa.
Sundays were the quietest of days. All commercial and business activities ceased for that day. Public transportation was at a halt. Shops were closed. Loud music was silenced. Farmers stayed out of their mountain lands. t was the Lord's Day. It was family day. It is now that we are all grown up and gone physically apart, mommy is in heaven, and yet life goes on that I appreciate the significance of those old and seemingly insignificant Sundays back then. Family and good parenting are essential inputs into the life of a growing child.
It is my hope that my readers are able to appreciate their own Sundays and other occasions when their family is sowing good things in their lives that will help them to stand productively as future adults.
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