I very much enjoy the AgTalk Cafe section because people can post thoughtful questions like this.

My 2-cents-worth...

I grew up in an aerial application service in the Delta. Boll weevils wouldn't wait, and there was no way to let up, especially in parts of the season when it was too windy to spray. My father was not a churchgoer, but my mother is a fairly traditional Southern Baptist. She well-grasped the ox-in-the-ditch loophole, so she had no problem with me doing the loading after church.

And farmers expected that their fields would be sprayed ASAP.

Being in the ag information business now is like a continuation of that. This afternoon I'll post several items that other people prepare and write over the weekend, usually on Sunday, so they can hit the ground running on Monday morning because the farmers expect them to be on call, whether they're Extension workers or brokers or crop consultants. Plus, I'm prepping next week's newsletters, laying out ads, etc.

When farmers go to my web site this afternoon or tonight, the regular visitors expect to find those commentaries immediately available. By Monday morning, they'll be too embroiled in planting and breakdowns to take a look.

When my wife was in junior high she was the kid nobody wanted in their Sunday School class because she asked the kind of skeptical questions that weren't covered in the lesson plan. She tells about confronting a Sunday School teacher when the subject of not working on Sunday was the focus. The question: "Well, if you eat at a restaurant today or pick up KFC, aren't you forcing someone else to work on Sunday?" She, in fact, knew the woman hardly every cooked a Sunday meal. My wife said it was worth getting up early that morning just to see her teacher try to explain that one.

We're Episcopalians now, and I don't know that the subject about working on the Sabbath comes up that much in any of the churches we've attended. I know, I know, many of you think we're going straight to hell, anyway, but if you so much pump a tank of gas at a service station on Sunday or pull through the drivein window at McDonald's, aren't you forcing someone else to work today, too?

Between the places I've lived and the work I've done, I've known people of strong faith who weren't mainstream Christians or even Christians, for that matter. It strikes me (and I've added this later) that the two groups I've know who seem to do the best job of honoring the Sabbath are Orthodox Jews and the Amish (and some of the more traditional Mennonites). But even those Amish farmers had to stop and milk the cows twice every Sunday.

The truth is, we live in a "just-in-time" economy. The fact that the local fertilizer dealer has to run 7 days a week is partly due to competitive forces that require him to make the most of equipment and personnel because he can't afford to add one more machine and hire and train another operator.

Economies have always exerted influence on how churches operate and the way that different faiths and denominations have to grapple with all kinds of questions. We have come to expect take-out food for Sunday lunch, so some people either don't go to church or go on Saturday night to services designed for them. Catholics have always had Saturday night mass, for example.

At least one of the local "mega" Baptist Churches in my area has Saturday night services now to fill a niche for people who do work on Sundays.

Jews in the post Civil War South who were small-town merchants had to shift much of their religious activity to Sunday because Saturday was the day and night that small farmers and plantation workers came to town to buy supplies. The concept of Sunday School was adopted by synagogues in rural Southern areas so Jewish kids could receive religious lessons, even though in the rest of the country I think that "Hebrew School" was on Saturdays.

I guess to the person who initially posted this question, your father did most of his farming in a different time. If matters of faith are important enough to enough people, the church will accomodate them.