I love Sundays.

Saturdays are for shirking off work, relaxing or partying, eating junk food, de-stressing from the week. On Saturdays, you get a free pass.

But Sunday morning comes, and everything is new again. A new week, a new perspective, a new beginning. A literal clean start: healthier eating, motivation to exercise, cleaning and caring for the house.

I’ve always wondered why calendars don’t start on Monday. For almost everyone, Monday is the start of the workweek, while Sunday means different things to different people: a day of worship for some, merely a second weekend day for others. And then there’s this: “On the seventh day, God rested.” The traditional, worship-centered “day of rest” has always been Sunday, so it sounds like God started on Monday. Why do we start our week on the Seventh Day?

I don’t know why or when the calendar was structured that way, but I’m grateful for it. If Sunday was at the end of the calendar week, just a day after Saturday, I think we’d all consider it another free-pass, de-stress, eat-what-you-want day. And I think we’d be worse off for it. The knowledge that Sunday is coming gives permission for everything you do (or don’t do) on Saturday. With the two weekend days, one at the close of the week, one at the opening of a new one, we get the best of both worlds: a day of carefree fun, made more joyful by the knowledge of tomorrow, and then the clean-start day, time to focus on taking care of yourself and others, before Monday begins and work takes center stage again.

What does everyone think? If Sunday was moved to the end of the calendar week, how would it change your perception of the day?

(Points to you if you noticed the Anne of Green Gables reference in the title.)