Other scholarly sources claim that the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday marks the end of The Epiphany Season. It should be noted that we do have three more "Sunday(s) after The Epiphany" to celebrate, so it is perfectly acceptable to leave the green or white/gold vestments/hangings up before switching over to the purple for Lent.
There will be endless squabbles about these finer liturgical points, reminding one again of the truth in the old saying that the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist is that you can negotiate with a terrorist.
Today is Groundhog Day, the day when Punxsutawney Phil, the meteorologically talented rodent (also known as a woodchuck or whistlepig) from Punxsutawney, PA, is rudely awakened from his slumber so that men of great wisdom and insight wearing black tuxedos and top hats will determine whether or not this lowly of God's creature will have been presented to the Baby Jesus in the Temple who will whisper in Phil's ear whether there will be six more weeks of winter or whether Spring will arrive.
Or, something.
I understand that Phil's wife, Phyllis, has divorced Phil and is living in Florida. She claims that Phil is a compulsive liar.
I have it on good authority (sez Ms. Conroy) that Phil did, in fact, see his shadow. this morning. So, don't start soaking those sweaters just yet, and keep your snow boots handy. Just in case.
Today is the second day of Black History Month. Today, I want to lift up, celebrate, and call the name of Claudette Colvin (1939- ) Before Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955, there was a brave 15-year-old who chose not to sit at the back of the bus.
That young girl was one, Ms. Claudette Colvin. On March 2, 1955, touting her constitutional rights to remain seated near the middle of the vehicle and not give up her seat to a white woman, Ms. Colvin challenged the driver and was subsequently arrested.
At school, she had recently learned about abolitionists, and later recalled that “it felt like Sojourner Truth was on one side pushing me down, and Harriet Tubman was on the other side of me pushing me down. I couldn’t get up.”
Colvin’s arrest was not the first instance of a Black person in the South refusing to give up their seat on a bus to a white passenger, but it did come at a pivotal moment for the civil rights movement.
Fred D. Gray, a prominent Montgomery lawyer and activist, took Colvin on as a client—his first civil rights case—with the aim of filing a federal suit to desegregate Alabama's bus system. Local civil rights leaders, however, decided not to proceed, in part due to Colvin’s age but also because, by her own assessment, she was too dark-skinned and soon became pregnant at age 16.
These factors, some feared, would hurt her chances of winning the case—unlike the known community figure who soon followed in her footsteps: Rosa Parks.
As I was taught by the Rev Dr. Eleanor McLaughlin, to understand history, like understanding scripture, one has to understand its context because history, like scripture, is contextual.
Today is the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, which marks 40 days from the Nativity of Jesus to his mother's purification in the temple, as required by Mosaic Law. It is in this story that we meet two fascinating people, Simeon and Anna, both of whom had prayed and fasted and waited to be able to see the manifestation of the incarnation of God, the Messiah come to rescue Israel from occupation and oppression.
I'm fascinated by the two very different responses to answered prayers. I don't think they are bound by gender but they are very different. Simeon sees the infant Jesus and says, "Oh, thank God. Now, I can die!"
I've certainly said something akin to that. Indeed, I clearly remember when SCOTUS allowed as how LGBTQ+ people did, in fact, have the Civil Right of Marriage. I think I said, "I never thought in my lifetime that I would see this happen. Now, I can die and go to heaven."
Glad I didn't. As lovely as heaven sounds, I have learned what Simeon learned. Even though the battle has been won, it doesn't mean the war is over. Idaho Republican legislators have called on the Supreme Court to reverse the ruling on same-sex marriage. Indiana, Florida, Utah, and Virginia: have also attempted to repeal or limit same-sex marriage rights.
Perhaps, then, it was in Anna's DNA to break out into a joyous dance upon seeing the infant Jesus, despite being "of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four."
She became the first recorded woman evangelist of the Incarnation, who began, "to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem."
There's a lot in all of that to digest. Good thing it's the first day of the week and the Sabbath, so we have the time to sit and let that all digest. Or, as it was said of Mary, to "ponder all these things in our heart."
I hope something good happens to you today.
Bom dia.
No comments:
Post a Comment