The Gift of the Day

 Good Wednesday morning, good citizens of the cosmos. Today is just chock-a-block full of notable details that make the day itself a gift of the season.

Today is the eighth day of the miracle of light celebrated in the Festival of Hanukkah - which actually ends tomorrow, so I think I've been counting incorrectly. Hmmm . . .

It is also the 8th day of Christmas. On this day, every true love gives their true love eight maids a milking. The number EIGHT has a great deal of spiritual symbolism. Here are just a few: the eight Beatitudes, the eight ancient Breviary or Divine Office prayer times (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline.), the points of the compass: N, S, E, W, NE, NW, SE, SW.

Today is the seventh and last day of Kwanzaa when the last green candle is lit and the principle of Imani, or faith, is celebrated. "That means honoring our best traditions as a family and community. We look within and above to strive for a higher level of spirituality and a better life for ourselves and for those around us."

Today is also the Feast of the Solemnity of Mary, which honors Mary's role in the birth of Jesus Christ and as the mother of God. The celebration also highlights the importance of Jesus' nature as both human and divine It is a day of Holy Obligation for Roman Catholics, which means they must attend mass. As I recall - and someone can correct me on this - a solemnity holds a higher liturgical rank than a feast day because a solemnity celebrates a mystery. 

Episcopalians, of course, celebrate today as The Feast of the Holy Name, formerly known as The Feast of the Circumcision when it was traditional for male infants to be circumcised. The feast reflects the significance of the Holy Name of Jesus, and the emphasis of the Gospel of Luke on the naming of Jesus rather than his circumcision, because, well, we're Episcopalian and circumcision is just a tad too . . . graphic, if it's all the same to you, thank you very much. (Our Roman friends celebrate the feast of the Holy Name on January 3rd) 

Today, of course, is New Year's Day, a day famously known for the Rose Bowl Parade and football games. It's also famously known as the day to suffer from a hangover, and lots of people will be taking all kinds of silly quack home remedies to ward off the headaches, GI upsets, and queasiness that come with a hangover, all so they can start drinking again while eating chicken wings and chips and dips and drinking alcohol, which is part of the ritual of watching football.

We humans are the source of most of our own misery.

Speaking of which, there are also two more notable occasions on today's calendar. Today is the Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, changing the legal status under federal law of more than 3.5 million African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free.

By lovely coincidence, today also marks the first time the great song Amazing Grace was presented at a prayer meeting in Olney, Buckinghamshire, England, on this date in 1773. Vicar John Newton had jotted down the verses in the attic room where he wrote his sermons.

Which brings me to consider, in my time of prayer and meditation, the gift of the day: The way we measure it from sun up to sun down. The way humans can fill a day like today with amazing significant events over the history of days. Or, the way we can allow a whole day or an entire string of days to float by like the silent shift of the tide, changing only itself and perhaps a tiny bit of the landscape invisible to the eye.

Jesus said it was important to let the day be sufficient unto the day, which was his antidote to anxiety and worry. It is why, in part, I include looking over what happened in days past as part of my prayer and meditation. It reminds me that whether or not something great happens today, history will record it and provide a lesson or two about how to use the gift of this day, today, these moments, which will become "a day in the life" of a person, a family, a neighborhood, a community, a state, a nation, the world.

I've spent part of my morning just considering the lessons of the past year and what it is I want to make sure to bring forward to the year 2025. We are sure to be challenged in ways that we would never have asked for or imagined.

If Project 2025 is any indication, the cruelty will be stunning.

Somehow, we have to figure out, as individuals and communities, how to find our better angels and rise up against the forces of cruelty and oppression and violence.

We're already off to a challenging start this morning with the tragic events that happened on Bourbon Street in NOLA. Twenty-six people were injured. Ten people are dead. Two police officers are wounded. The city is in lockdown only hours before the Sugar Bowl. The perpetrator is dead.

What would lead a person to intentionally drive a truck through a crowd of people who had gathered to celebrate the New Year? What terror must he have been feeling to want to recreate terror? Was the death of the perpetrator "suicide by cop"?

This event has already made its mark on the calendar of days. History will record it and future generations will note it. What we will learn from it has yet to be revealed. Clearly, the religious, political, secular, and spiritual significance and past events of this day had no impact on the person who committed this heinous act. Would it have changed anything?

The sixth chapter of Matthew's gospel, in its entirety, is a good meditation to take with us into the day. It begins with the admonition to give to the needy and includes the Lord's Prayer. It continues with instructions about fasting and how we can not serve two masters. It ends with my grandmother's favorite passage about the lilies of the field, and with these words from Jesus, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day." (RSV)

I think that's exactly how we'll get through Project 2025. One day at a time. And, together. Kindness will help.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.