The origin of the week is unclear, though for our purposes Constantine institutionalized it in the West. The seven-day cycle goes back much further, probably as a more or less even division of the Lunar month. The Christian week starts on Sunday, commemorating the Resurrection, but we've come to treat that as the day of rest, which used to be Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath, now secularized as a day of play.) This leaves us with Monday as the "beginning" of the week. If a cycle is being observed all around you, you'll feel it, even if you aren't directly participating. It's important to connect small cycles, like the day or week, to larger cycles like the year, in order to give scale to the Universe, and define our place in it. Mondays may be tough, but can you imagine an ongoing linear time, without the repetition of the week? We'd be awful tired before it's over…
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- alex 4-24-2003 6:19 pm