When the Homily is about Immunology

Seasons

John Bell's picture and blogging about Fall got me thinking about seasons.

While it would seem Fall is more entrenched in Virginia than it is on Kitsap - our trees have not yet changed to the extent his has, and only "our" feral cats have seemingly announced by their increased presence that "Dang it's gettin' cold out here!"

Modern life has largely taken the wonder of seasons away from us, such that we might all just as well live on the equator. Yeah yeah we have to change our dress and have the heat on, and from time to time a bad storm comes and might prevent us from getting around...but in more rural area and in times past the season meant and mean a great deal more. I think that the closer you live to your soil, the more the season matter. We've sterilized life, and to some degree this is a good thing (i.e. disease prevention), but I wonder if we have not overdone it.

Consider the seasons and how the connect with the Liturgical life of the Church. Despite all the silly arguments that Jesus wasn't born in December or that that pareticular dating was a conspiracy of the Church to overtake a pagan festival, in the end it just makes sense when you consider the wider state of the universe when Christ became one of us. The middle of winter is dark and cold. Life has seemingly stopped or become stagnant. And into that darkness comes light. And if you lived in a time when you really had to live at the mercy of the seasons, when your life and well being more greatly hinged upon the seasons...well all the more reason to try and celebrate hope in the midst of darkest winter.

And, naturally, Spring IS Resurrection. With this in mind, I've often wondered if those in the southern hemisphere ought to celebrate by a different calender. Why not? Those on the equator...well you all should just move to better support my notion here, not to mention that every civilized human being knows that you ought to at least have a chance for snow in the winter. As any illumined staretz will tell you, Orthodoxy works well on snowy nights.

In Kitsap, power outages are said to be a common occurance. What this means, often, is that we need to be prepared to possibly not have water and not have heat for an unknow number of days. Once the chicks arrive we will also need to worry about their warmth since their warming lamp will be out. So, there is preparation to be made for our winter...much more than just buying a styrofoam cover for our water spickets, too. Once we start seriously farming and seriously raising animals, the seasons will speak to us even more loudly. But already we can hear their voices more than we used to.

I wonder if it will speak more meaning into our dance through the liturgical cycle? I suppose that will be up to us.