It was represented to me that some people like to read sermons rather than watch the video and this Sermon from Sunday got a few requests.  So here it is. It is slightly altered to be made readable.  However, in essence it is the same as the video in the previous post.

Knowing Nature Better
Rev. Dr. Adam Tierney-Eliot
1/28/24

Texts: 
Luke 13:6-9, 
Genesis 1, 
Fern, Bog, and Swamp by Annie Proulx

“From that family in that decade I was given a glimpse of the intricate complexities of the natural world…As I grew older and read and traveled I learned that the 1930’s were years of vile human behavior in a world that hubristically considered itself “civilized”...” –Annie Proulx

Preparing for last week’s sermon about Jonah and the whale…or the big fish…or the sea monster, my first thought, was of a children’s book that I loved when I was younger. The book I thought of is a sort of Jonah story.  At least is is a Jonah story with a twist; Burt Dow Deep Water Man by Robert McCloskey. Burt Dow continued McCloskey’s trend of stories like Make Way for Ducklings or Blueberries for Sal where the wilds of nature overlap with the powers of civilization…and somehow everything works out

Now if you don’t know the story–it was his last book and not nearly as popular as the others–Burt was a lobsterman who was also swallowed by a whale, just like Jonah. He didn’t pray for assistance though, or wait for help from anyone, like Jonah did. For Burt the “big fish” wasn’t the representation of the ancient power of creation. It was an annoyance. 

Trapped in the belly of the beast, Burt used old buckets of paint in his lobster boat and covered the whale’s stomach lining with that paint. The whale got indigestion. Paint isn’t good for wild animals. Then, Burt, the boat, and a random friendly seagull were vomited out and back into the ocean

When I was a kid–growing up at a time when we humans were more of a threat to the natural world than it was to us–I wondered why Jonah wasn’t more proactive, like Bert. I wondered why this Biblical prophet didn’t play the clever modern and outwit the big dumb whale. I think all my young friends did, too.

Now, living where we did, it was still relatively easy to look around and see the vast, diverse array of Creation–which is to say the interconnected ecosystem, human and otherwise–around us. Like Annie Proulx–although much later–we understood when we were very young that nature was something to be respected and at times feared.  After all, we had fallen through the ice. We had cracked our ribs sledding. We had broken limbs and gotten concussions falling out of trees.

However, a great deal happened to the earth between the 1930’s and the 1970’s, so perhaps unlike Proulx we also had a sense that in the end nature could be outwitted when we humans put our minds to it. We knew it could and would be bent to human uses.  We saw this in the farms next to our houses. We saw it in the municipal, state, and federal parks where we could hike and camp. We saw this human hand, too, in the Androscoggin River that ran through downtown.  When I was born it was one of the top ten most polluted rivers in the country.  It was where the mills dumped their dyes and their bleaches until the pillars of toxic foam rose above the banks, touching the bottom of bridges. It was a place where the “smell of money” –of the fumes from those liquefied chemicals–was a regular part of our lives.

Now, we knew we probably would have had fewer injuries if we didn’t think like Burt Dow. We were able to see cause and effect, after all. Also, the river–which was injurious to all of us–was already designated a national problem; receiving some of the first funds from the Clean Water Act when I was two years old. The time and the tide had just begun to turn. You see, the 1930’s of Annie Proulx’s childhood had helped to create a crisis that could no longer be ignored in the 1970’s and 1980’s. During our time we were realizing that Creation, as dangerous as it had been to Jonah and could be to the unwary, was being made more dangerous through our actions

But that idea–that we could and should control nature–was and is still ingrained in us at a young age. That idea contains within it the belief that human beings are at the top of the food chain. It is the unexamined assumption that we are the smartest and most creative species ever evolved and the spurious fact that we are destined–in the words of the Transcendentalist minister James Freeman Clarke to go “Onward and Upward Forever” through the strength of our minds.

Now, whether we actually believe this anymore–this manifest destiny of humanity–isn’t entirely clear. We have experienced a great deal, from the toxic river and the stench in the air, to the bizarre weather patterns, drought, flooding and increased risk of pandemics. This experience might change our minds about human superiority. Either way, though, the way we humans act as a group still implies this sense of superiority, separation, and control. Whether we are stewards of the earth, or its exploiters, we like to be in charge.

Now the way we debate the future of our environment assumes this belief; a belief that we are empowered to decide what nature has to give us...and arrange things to our liking. It goes at least as far back as Genesis Chapter 1 “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every living thing that moves upon the earth.” If you want to dive into the implications of this theology you are invited to the forum after church on March 3.

Right now, suffice it to say that riding underneath the human practice of exploitation of the earth is the belief that it is ours and that we own it like we own a car. We think we can do as we see fit. It undergirds the thinking of those polluters of the river and the air as well as the folks who make the parks for our recreation.

The question both sides are asking is what services it can provide us. Is the river power for the mill and a dumping ground for waste or a place to fish for food? Is the mountain a source of nickel, or iron or coal? Or is it a place to go skiing in the winter time? One set of answers are better for the planet. However, in both outcomes, the basic question is the same… How can the earth, how can creation serve humanity? 

Of course we could also ask a different question, namely how we can be of service to it and–through that service to the entire ecosystem–be of service to humanity. We also, as human beings, have subscribed to this question, sometimes simultaneously. We do this even though it isn’t really compatible with the dominant theology–secular and sacred–that our capitalist culture projects. This other way will be the topic of the forum on March 10.

You see, there is no requirement for us to follow a rule extrapolated from an ancient story written by people who could not conceive of the industrial “advances” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no requirement that human beings stay perched on our privileged place while creation suffers “beneath” us.  Again, as I said last week, we can learn and practice not rulership but relationship.

However, that is harder to do than to keep on keeping on trodding our path to self-destruction. “Our species is not adept at seeing slow and subtle change.”  Says Proulx “There is a tree, we cut it down—we immediately recognize that there is a change. Yet we see a tree and we see it again a year later without noticing the new growth tips” 

This is where those few verses from the Gospel of Luke come in. As with many parables, it features a rich man who doesn’t know what he is doing. The confused rich man gets angry because he has this fig tree that isn’t bearing fruit. He demands that his gardener cuts it down because it is taking up space. You see, the tree isn’t serving the man so in his mind…it doesn’t deserve to live. It must be a faulty tree. However, the gardener, the hero in the story, stops him and says “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure in it.”

He says this, because he, the gardener, is in relationship with the soil, with the tree, with the animals offstage, with the ecosystem that actually produces the fruit and actually sustains all living things. He is being patient. He is reading the signs. He is asking not “what does the ruler require” But instead, “what can we all contribute so that we all get what we need?”

The soil needs the manure from the animals. The tree needs that fertile soil. The boss…needs that fig.

This change, as we talked about last week, doesn’t arrive right away. Annie Proulx writes that “To observe gradual change takes years of repetitive Passage through specific regions week after week, season after season, noting sprout, Bloom and decay, observing the local fauna, absorbing the rise and fall of waters.” It takes time and knowledge. It takes listening and learning but then…in a years time there is the fruit…and the cycle starts again

So let us take a moment to think of the subtle changes we have seen in creation and in our own lives as we are part of creation, too…
​

So here is the second sermon in my "Learning From Nature" series.  The series will have to take a bit of a hiatus as we have Annual Meeting this Sunday. However, so far, I am enjoying it.  I have decided to move slowly.  Attendance is such that not everyone is in church every week and there are some key concepts here to help us consider how we can change how we relate to the natural world.  I believe that most people--including myself--tend to believe that their (or our) connection to the natural world is closer than it is.  This series is part of an effort to get us to think differently about our place in the ecosystem.

Another part of this process will include a couple forums--essentially one hour workshops after church--on March 3 and March 10 to think about the theology around this relationship.  There will be a Pub Theology as well, riffing off the previous "Pub" when we talked about eco-anxiety.  You are welcome to attend if you are around!  IT is slow process to change our cultural norms and values.  However, we won't ever manage it if we never start.

I started an asynchronous online graduate course in Environmental Policy today.  The reasons were varied.  However, the biggest one had to do with my questions about the role of the church in the environmental movement.  I have been a minister for a long time.  Over the years environmentalism has been a regular topic or lens for me.  I have led workshops and outdoor worship.  We have examined the topic in the context of transcendentalism and other nature theologies. 

During all this time, though, I felt myself coming up against a blind spot.  The fact is, I know a great deal about nature and spirituality.  I have tons of practical experience with human beings and how they move through the world. However, I don't know as much about the science and economics around many of the problems and issues our planet faces. 

This isn't a shock.  I am a pastor.  I live and work in a community where my role is to "walk" with people to help them make sense of their lives, the world, their relationships, and their feelings. My biggest resource--among many--is a very ancient collection of texts written by people whose philosophical and theological chops were strong but whose economic and scientific chops were...well...lacking.  This isn't a judgment of them necessarily.  They weren't destroying the planet nearly as quickly as we are, after all...

Anyway, as you know I spend a lot of time outdoors.  My hiking adventures account for most of what is on this page.  I have to say, when I am "out there" on a mountain or a local trail, I wonder how long it will be around.  I wonder about the drastic shifts in weather.  I want to know what is going on with Creation--church people use the term "Creation" frequently even though most of us are not creationists--and what I can do about it. Right now I am feeling the need to dip into a better understanding of the ecosystem and the dynamics that contribute to its health.  

Yesterday I began a sermon series on these subjects.  It is independent of the course I am taking but I am sure there will be overlap. As it currently stands I will preach a number of sermons on Sunday mornings, host a number of workshops, and set up some "Pub Theology" sessions to talk about what the church can do to help the environment.  I feel like we have a role to play that we--houses of worship regardless of faith tradition--are uniquely positioned for.  We deal with hearts and minds.  To truly save humanity, we need to re-take our place in the network of living things.  This has to start with a change in attitude and conversation. 

Anyway, I will probably drop in here to wax lyrical on this subject from time to time.  If you live in the area, check out the church newsletter.  We would love to have you as part of this conversation!

​PS This is Sunday's Sermon...

So the holidays are over...and that is OK with me.  The first snow came over the weekend.  It messed up some church plans but I will get over it.  More pressingly, it is messing up my old bones which is making it hard to peel myself out of the bed, don my winter gear, and walk the dog for her accustomed four miles.  It just didn't happen today.  Even though I have done a great deal of hiking--much of it in the winter--it takes a while for me to recover these days. 

That is the way with time.  It rolls on ahead of us and we need to pace ourselves. We are different people from moment to moment.  Through the years this long line of who we have been changes. With each change we are less like the person we were when we were born. We are less like the person our parents dreamed of us being. We are--even--less like the one we thought we would be.  You know this...but it is worth pointing out sometimes.

That isn't always a bad thing, is it? Lost plans make us who we are. I remember in my undergraduate Anthropology class watching a documentary that followed two groups of children from elementary school well into their adulthood.  In the first video all the kids said what they wanted to be when they grew up.  By the end the rich ones had become just what their young selves said they would be.  The others--working class mostly--went on some unpredictable adventures.  Some stories were tragic.  Mostly, though, they did things they never thought possible.  In fact, they wouldn't even have had the words when they were young to describe the adults they became.

Anyway, the new year is an arbitrary date but--as we talked about during Advent--all holidays are arbitrary.  I have plans for 2024. I bet you do too. It is hard not to look both back and forward at the same time.

Maybe you don't have a resolution.  I don't. That is fine.  However, in surveying 2023 I see good parts and bad parts.  There have been times when I thought that I handled things well.  There were times when it felt like whatever I did made things worse.  This is normal.  It takes a certain level of delusion or a high level of privilege to go through life thinking you are perfect, right?

So what are you thinking about for the future?  For me, the "tiny step" involves trying to figure out what to do with this dog. She came to us the Saturday before Thanksgiving Sunday (which--for the edification of non-church people--is before Thanksgiving).  Right after that was the chaos of the holidays and of our lives which took an entropic turn. It has been a long time since we had a dog. The last one was a husky, who was very different from the one we have now. I hope to figure out our relationship over the next year.  Things will come out of that, I am sure. Not all of them will be good or successful.  However, my wife tells me I am not happy unless I have seven projects going at a time.  So there yah go...

During the Christmas season we went to the Worcester Art Museum and sat for a while in the 12th Century Benedictine priory they have just off the main hall. A jazz band was playing.  The band was great but the acoustics were not.  Anyway, I sat there for a while, recovering from all the mess of the month before.  I thought of the things I hadn't managed to get done.  Then I did my best to let them go.  Most plans don't work out.  What is left, though, is a life.

Whatever your plan is, I hope you commit to it.  I also hope you take it easy. Otherwise you might break something.  Right now I would like to go for a big hike in the snow.  The dog and I look out the window and all I can see is the potential for adventure and stories.  She probably sees squirrels and frozen poop. That ankle though...I need to take my time now if hiking ever gets to be a thing for me again....

Such is the way with the new year.  It is a lot like the old one.  Old injuries and burdens continue.  However, maybe the dreams change along with our ability and our commitment to live into them.

A little before lunch--and on my third cup of coffee--I opened the last door of the secular Advent calendar.  That's it.  A mere handful of hours after dark, Advent ends and Christmas begins.  I hope you had a good one.  

I am getting ready to head up to church to prepare for the Christmas Eve service.  As I have noted before, we have had as many as three in one night.  This year it is just the one service.  There are reasons, of course, but now is not the time to get into them.  There will be carols and candles.  There will be prayers. It will be a witness to Hope, Faith, Joy, and Love in a world that should do better with these things.  Then we will go to our homes and rap whatever needs rapping...then go to bed.

I have nothing clever or insightful to say.  This is your holiday and--for good or ill--you have made what could be made of it.  Thank you for reading!  It looks like I only missed posting once, which is pretty good. I do not know if I will do this again.  It was a writing project for myself, mostly.  It is good to make sense of this season as it rolls along.  Now I am ready for what is next.  I hope you are too.

Middle Son has just arrived from out west (Hampshire County, Massachusetts) which is great. However, it is a pretty good indicator that we are too busy for reflection.  The Christmas Eve service is as ready as it can be at this point.  Presents have either been purchased or failed to be purchased.  Everything is either stress, festivity, or festive stress.  Oh well...it is what it is!

Given the lack of reflection time and whatnot, I have an old video for you.  It was recorded in 2019, when we were so much younger than today.  I made it to promote the pageant of that year.  The video, itself is...rough.  Recording things for fun was still a novelty in my profession.  It was enough a novelty that wandering around the mall was entertaining.  Anyway, here it is!  I hope you are all managing to do what you have to do for the time to come.

I am not good at planning ahead.  It is something everybody knows about me.  Sure, there are discreet areas of my life where I am very organized.  Mostly, however, it is a rush to the wire.  Right now I am shoring up the order of service for Christmas Eve.  It looks fine.  As I mentioned yesterday, there are few variations.  The biggest one is who does the readings.

Yes, I am a bit behind in this part of the holidays, but that is not what I am talking about.  Also, church Christmas cards may not get out until after Christmas starts...or never.  That is not what I am talking about either.  The reasons for the lateness in this area are easily explained by the chaos of the last two weeks.  I posted about it.  You can read through the Advent collection to find out what I mean.

No, the problem is that I should have had a backup plan for today's installment of the Sabbath Walks Advent Calendar that you are reading right now.  The fact is, I had planned to report on the annual Eliot Church Solstice Carol sing.  However I cannot.  I didn't go. You see, we have an unfolding Covid situation in my family and it seemed the best course of action not to potentially infect people.  I think we made the right choice by staying home.  Still...I miss it. It was easier in 2020 to miss things.  Now there is so much FOMO whenever I cannot be in a place.

I guess that is what we are talking about today.  The Fear Of Missing Out is real all the time, but very telling during the holidays.  Those things we get used to doing or those fun one-off events are what give the time its special feel.  However, even before the plague we had to cancel from time to time.  Each time it is hard.  For me, I can go without a lot of the movies and shopping.  I can even be good with missing worship.  What gets me, though, is when I cannot see people. 

There are individuals I only see one or two times a year.  This season is almost always one of those times. I think this is true for most people. When I was a kid, my parents always held a big holiday party at some point in the season.  Some of the people who came were close friends that were in and out of our lives on a regular basis.  Others just came to the party and it was fun to see them.  I miss that.  I miss the gatherings.  The Solstice Carol sing is a gathering, even though I know that I will greet all those people again soon enough.

I spent the evening by our Christmas tree, looking at seed catalogs.  Yeah, I am planning ahead for the spring garden.  It is what gets me through winter. I hope that you made it to just as many events as you required.  I hope you took in the silent time, too.  Either way, we need to remember to reinforce the bonds that hold humans close, even if it is difficult.  Good luck on all your plans and all your relationships as we speed to the finish.

Let's talk about memories for a moment.  I am putting the finishing touches on the Christmas Eve service and I have to say...very little changes from year to year.  In a way this is strange.  Even in church we try to do different things each week.  It would be unusual indeed for the hymns and the prayers to be the same every single Sunday!  However, with Christmas Eve the opposite is the case.  In fact, when changes are made they frequently don't even register.  Sometimes we have had a sermon.  Sometimes we haven't.  Yet if you asked any member whether there is a sermon or not they would say that I never preach at that service.

This it true for other elements of the season.  In yesterday's post I referenced a number of holiday movies.  I can do that with confidence because the same ones are watched by so many people every year. We know them so well.  Many know them better than the Bible story. The one big exception seems to be "Hallmark movies".  There are new ones every year, which creates at least the illusion of variety.  Even those follow a predictable arc.  Food,  music,  decorations, and many other aspects of the season remain the same.  What among the holiday trappings is timeless and essential varies, of course, with the person and the memory.

Now, there are also people who would rather walk across hot coals than replicate their childhood holidays.  There are people who avoid their families.  There are those who see variety as the best way to engage with the time.  I suspect memory has something to do with that as well.  If you never feel comfortable during the season, why the heck would you try to replicate it every year?  I get that, too.

In fact, a little examination is good.  Knowing why we do what we do helps us to understand ourselves and our reactions.  Changing it up is important.  We aren't merely in the quest for a "new tradition" either.  Sometimes we just do a thing one time to see how it feels.  Then--love it or hate it--we leave it where it is as a relic of a moment.  It is OK to just do a thing once, even if we like it.

At Eliot there was the year we had a 9:30 PM folk service on Christmas Eve.  It was half open-mic and half lessons and carols. The "9:30" was my idea.  We had a group of high school students who were very much into music and who were getting ready to leave for college.  I thought it would be fun just this one time. 

​In the end it was...a mixed bag.  A few of us had worked and played--and preached--at the 5pm  and 7pm services.  Family members were annoyed because we had disturbed post-service rituals that had always been exactly the same. 

Still, I think about it from time to time as a good memory. The church was dark and quiet.  The small audience was appreciative.  It was, in the end, a fun thing to do to end the Advent season.  Would I do it again?  Probably not.  Yet it wasn't all bad....

Here is a video from that year.  We are playing a Frank Turner song.  The other person is former youth grouper and now friend, Walker Lambrecht.  Occasionally we think of playing this in church again.   So far the timing hasn't been quite right...

There are many similarities between Lent and Advent.  They are both seasons of waiting.  They are often both ignored or forgotten by most people since the "big day" is easier to monetize.   There are little rituals associated with them that help us to bide the time before Christmas and Easter respectively.  Also, if we want to, we can create a spiritual walk for ourselves through daily observations, like writing (or reading) this blog.

That Easter and Christmas aren't actually days but seasons is also lost for the same reason.  We like short, punchy, easily understood things.  Both unfold over time in the midst of everything else.  This is different, too. They militate against compartmentalization of life.

Yet they are also pretty different.  Advent is very much the junior partner in this.  So, too, is Christmas.  Easter is the "high holy day" of Christianity.  Lent is the time to prepare for that day, with--during Holy Week--a series of days all more important than the first day of Christmas.  With this in mind, it is easy to think of Advent as a sort of "user friendly" version of Lent.  Honestly, easy is just fine.  The season is indeed an echo--in theological terms--of its spring counterpart.  Waiting for a birth should be less demanding than waiting for a rebirth.

That is the big difference.  Christmas is about birth.  Easter is about resurrection.  Christmas isn't really a story so much as the opening paragraph of a story.  Now at the beginning of winter we are still able to celebrate.  Our stomachs are full from the fall harvest and the first snow sounds exciting. After the long winter we emerge on the other side, looking forward to the return of new life.  We love Christmas.  We need Easter. We all start somewhere but we hit bumps on the road.  We look for personal resurrections to get back to where we now belong. 

You can see it in the movies we watch.  Elf, It's a Wonderful Life, Merry Christmas Charlie Brown, and A Christmas Carol are all really Easter stories set at Christmas time. It is further proof that we aren't celebrating Christmas so much as we are re-naming Yule. In these holiday stories, characters go from joy to sorrow and then are "reborn" back to a better state of being.  In the course of It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey goes from an idealistic kid to a determined adult, then descends into despair, alcohol, financial ruin, and suicide.  Finally, through divine intervention he realizes his place in Bedford Falls and understands that even though life is never perfect, he is "the richest man in town".  The movie ends ambiguously, too.  Mr Potter, the stand in for capitalist power and greed, still looms offstage.

Those elements-- the journey from contentment to despair to spiritual intervention to rebirth in an imperfect world--exists in all these holiday specials.  This is not surprising.  Resurrection is more interesting. We understand disillusionment.  We understand tragedy.  We know that the hard part is living that life after we are born.  We are always in the process of losing and finding our humanity. 

Of course, one could argue for two films as being closer to Christmas than any other.  In the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas the titular character starts as evil and ends up as a pretty good guy.  There is no real evidence of a past goodness that he is reclaiming.  The goodness is born for the first time within him on that frozen cliff.  The other is Die Hard.  If we are saying that all these Easter stories are Christmas stories because of snow and holiday greenery...then Die Hard makes the cut.

This year I did a lot of experimenting with things that I enjoy.  One of them was making YouTube videos of me hiking with my friends.  Most of them are not very good.  However, as with folk music and most of my other hobbies, excellence was not the goal.  They were fun to do and I learned some things.  

That said, there may not ever be a rebirth of my hiking vids.  I just don't have the money or the time to invest in them.  I am sharing one here, though.  It is really about Lent but hits many of the themes of today as well. Here is looking forward the births that will bring about rebirths in the end.

If you are reading this from your home in the northeastern US then you are probably recovering from about 36 hours of chaos.  Thanks Climate Change!  What the heck was that?  It was a "bomb cyclone" and something that we are all going to have to get used to.  Regular readers know that one of its early victims was my beloved Subaru Crosstrek.  That was just the opening volley of a very strange day.  The parsonage is one of a half-dozen old houses built in a swampy spot along the Charles river.  In heavy rain our lawns become lakes and so do our basements.  The morning scene was quite impressive.  It only got wilder as the day went on.  Like pretty much everybody in our neighborhood, we quickly lost power.

That was all yesterday.  This morning we woke up to the general mess that happens when you don't know you are making a mess.  Outdoors there was detritus everywhere.  Indoors it looked like three humans, three cats, and a dog held a rager all night long. I remember this sort of mess from camping. After all, what is a "camp", tent, or hunting cabin other than a house without power?

Yesterday, at 4:30 in the afternoon, I came inside after making a last desperate attempt to save things from my destroyed car. I noticed then that I could no longer read or write without a light source.   What had happened was that the storm had kicked up again and the dimming light from the dying day just couldn't penetrate the inside of the house. Without electricity it gets very dark very early and you don't even see all the things that need cleaning. How do we entertain ourselves, much less tidy up from dinner?  

I have already speculated this Advent on what it must have been like before all our modern conveniences.  The stakes were higher for the solstice then. However, it feels like the bomb cyclone of 12/18/23 was a lab project for experiencing things the way our ancestors did.  This is what they dealt with every single year.  The night grew longer.  The storm season came.  They needed to make sense of things as they made provision for food, warmth, and shelter.  Light, my friends, was a second-tier concern. They told themselves stories as they went to bed earlier and rose later. The "long winter's nap" matched the movement of the sun.  People were vulnerable during this time in a way we are not.  Given those circumstances, I would be looking for miracles, too. 

This week--for a short period of time--we were forced to live closer to nature. Yes, some  homes had generators, I know.  There was one house in our neighborhood like that and we all heard the rumble.  The rest of us were dependent on the rise of our primal selves.  This was subtle for some and more explicit for others.  I used the primal energy to solve numerous basic problems that humans have always encountered. In the drafty old parsonage I needed to grab blankets in anticipation of a cold snap that never arrived.  I had to figure out how to cook.  To the best of my ability, I tried to keep up with holiday planning at church. We also needed to figure out how to entertain ourselves, which was easier for the humans than the pets.  There is a reason that we love our conveniences.

In the end we did settle down to bed a bit early, after chores and last-minute attempts to salvage a day of work.  The salvage attempt, by the way, was not successful. I think that with all that has happened lately, God is telling us that this will be an imperfect holiday. Then, after a while, there was nothing to do but wait for a new day... 

I hope that you all managed to get something out of the darkness.  When this has happened to me in the past, I didn't feel that there was as much entropy in my life as there is right now.  Still, the ancients managed the seasons all the time, celebrating when it made sense to do so.  So...let's manage what we can and celebrate when we can.  This is our one life in the darkening earth.