Holy Days
So it’s holiday season. But then, when isn’t?
Well, summer.
Oh sure summer has Independence Day and Labor Day, but there are no big summer “holy days,” no Christian holidays. I mean, fall has Halloween, and winter has Christmas, and spring has Easter, but what gives with summer?
So I asked God what the deal was. He told me that summers are a great time and when times are going good people don’t feel as much need to get on his good side. See, fall comes and the weather starts to turn, the leaves begin to die and the fields all go fallow. There’s a real sense that without some help the food could run out but times are still good enough that we can laugh at death, so we trot out our skeletons and tell each other ghost stories. Then winter settles in. Enough food has been put away (or, these days, flown in from New Zealand) but there’s still some trepidation that the snow may never go away, that the days may never get longer, and that maybe this time spring won’t come. So we celebrate a famous birth and we pray for renewal and we ask our wise men to tell us it’s all alright. Then spring does come around and suddenly things do seem alright again, so we celebrate the rebirth of everything and trot out all the fertility symbols we can find to express how glad we are.
Then summer comes and we’re too busy enjoying life and living large to turn our thoughts to God. He says we’re kind of the opposite of fair weather friends, but he doesn’t mind, he knows he’ll get us back when winter comes storming in.
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