March 25

I learned recently that today (the twenty fifth of March) was once held in tradition to be the date on which Jesus died (which we now celebrate according to a lunar calendar on various dates of Good Friday). It also has to do with the reasons of when Christmas would be celebrated.

Apparently people used to think that greatness was determined by the symmetry of one's birth and death- if you died on your birthday it was a good sign somehow. But being killed nine months before one's birthday wasn't really all that hot.  Unless you get Resurrected and redeem the whole universe.  Then you have this whole new dimension of death really being a new kind of beginning of the new birth and this idea in the liturgical year that there's a nine month gestation period between now and Christmas.  Then there's also something special about those three months between Christmas and now because that was that season that overlapped in the first and last years of Jesus' (earthly) life.

Then you get Tolkien, who notices everything and tries to show it to us in hidden little ways.  Go look through the index of your copy of the Lord of the Rings (if you don't have a copy, I don't know what you're doing reading this blog).  The big journey (of the Fellowship anyway) begins on December 25.  And Frodo destroys the Ring on March 25.  It's that fantastic three months of redemption that the liturgical year and Tolkien are trying to remind us of.

And you can even see vestiges of this in our society's traditions when we resolve to change ourselves for the better at New Year's, or commit to love each other better at Valentine's Day, or commit to sacrifice something for Lent.  It's all in that redemptive track reminding us (like every Sunday) that Christ has changed the world and we don't live in the same place anymore.

Now because Easter and such is followed on the lunar calendar, "Holy Week" is yet to come.  Now I don't know how all got decided when to do what, but what is important is that it got decided for very good reasons and those reasons are meant to teach us something, not just to be arbitrary.
 So remember that as we all consider what on earth the word Maunday means on Thursday.


* I learned all of this from these two books: The Liturgical Year and Tolkien: Author of the Century

Impatience and Lust

In his book Compassion, Henri Nouwen describes impatience (in this paraphrase of mine since I can't find my book to directly quote from) as a declaration that "now" is not good enough and as a failure to recognize a moment as full and rich.  We always think that if only this would happen now, or this other future thing would occur sooner, we would be satisfied.  But we find that when that thing finally comes, we're ignoring it only to look ahead further to the next thing that is just too far away.
And lust.  It's usually understood in one of it's more common specific uses, that of sexual lust, but the broader term here fits in with impatience.  That broader understanding of lust is the desire to believe in a lie.  Very often it is also a lie of future satisfaction that will take place if only we do something.  It's all very built on the "if only"- a declaration that something right now is not good enough.

A week or so ago, I thought to myself "if only I can hear back about whether not I'm into that masters program! Then, I'll be satisfied!"
Well, now I know.  I'm in.  Woo hoo.  Where's the satisfaction?  Impatience and lust whisper in my ear, "That's six months away!  Things will be so much better when it actually starts.  You'll be satisfied then... if only it can come sooner!"
False!  I will have homework and papers I don't want to write and other trash; they will come whispering again, "Just wait until summer or graduation when you can be free of all those terrible obligations..."  Again, false, real life exists and there will always be something to do and look forward too.  Where does it end?  Death?  Not ready for that.
I've got to start learning now that now is okay.  In fact it's great.  And I don't need to look for my satisfaction in something that is yet to come.  That's just gonna leave me empty and hungry and dying (literally) for the next thing.

You know that feeling you get when someone hints that another person whom you really respect likes you?  You get that kind of flutter and excitement and realize that you're important to someone really important.  Sometimes we forget that Someone Really Important thinks pretty highly of us and I think that's plenty to be satisfied about.