Calendars

As I was enjoying the fresh sounds of spring winds blowing in the newly sprouted leaves of our backyard, I realized how much I enjoy seasons ... again. It has been particularly nice to enter into spring. Tomorrow, the forecast is for thunderstorms.

Meanwhile, while enjoying the passing of time through seasons, I was reading a book discussing the church calendar, which is also meant to mark the passage of time and to help us find particular meaning in the seasons that unfold.

For thousands of years, human beings have enhanced the reality of their lived experience by setting time to seasons and specific occasions in the lunar, solar or agricultural cycle. Often, calendars are created to reinforce certain cultural beliefs - social, theological, political. The Gregorian calendar for instance is largely dependent upon Christianity and was begun to help fix the problem of when to celebrate Easter.

Today, however, I realized that my own sense of time has also been largely determined by two other calendars: scholastic and athletic.

I was particularly struck by how much sports dictates my understanding of time and seasons. For as far back as I can remember, my world rotates around football, basketball and baseball. But, those are not the only three. Various other sporting events mark other occasions on my internal calendar: the Masters in April, the "500" in May (which will probably become the "Derby" in May), Wimbeldon in July, etc. Then, of course, there are the leap year events (every four years): World Cup, summer and winter olympics.

I have noticed this more and more since deciding ministry will be my calling. Weekends are slowly (and sometimes painfully) being adjusted away from the learned calendar of sports to the somewhat foreign, but pleasing calendar of liturgy.

Still, I really don't quite get Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, ordinary time (1st), Lent, Easter, Pentecost, ordinary time (2nd). I would be ashamed with myself if I had this calendar planted in me long, long ago. But, in reality, the church calendar is like a new seed, a new rhythm I am hoping to conform to. Honestly, it's taking time.

In fact, most weekends, I struggle to forge new habits more in step with resurrection, waiting and birth and less in step with world champion, super bowl and October series. I find myself divided like St. Paul was: that which I want to do, I cannot and that which I hope to become, I fail to observe.

I am not alone in this. It is very American like me - considering that every major holiday now features some sort of sporting event: football on Thanksgiving, basketball on Christmas and Easter, baseball on the 4th of July and during the harvest of fall.

There's something else here: it may have been different when sports were a type of recreation in American culture. Nowadays, sports are entertainment, so every major season in our culture is marked by a type of "watched" (not participated) entertainment.

Perhaps that is why I have a hard time "getting" the church calendar; it demands more than my subtle, passive observation - say merely turning on the boob tube and laying down for two to three hours. To really feel the rhythms God has given to shape us (those that follow our more ancient cycles of nature) require a deeper observation and even participation.

It's really hard to learn a new rhythm on down the road of life.

Wes