Category Archives: holidays

02/2/10

Candlemas and Carnival

As happens roughly once every four years or so in Reform Unitarianism, Candlemas is falling on Carnival Thursday.

In most Christian churches, Candlemas celebrates only the presentation of Jesus at the Temple as a baby by Mary and Joseph.  However, AUR also celebrates another Temple-related event on this day: the Disputation, when a 12-year-old Jesus debated the Torah with Jewish elders.

In this way, both biblical narratives of the life of Jesus between the Nativity and Ministry are brought together on one day, the first Thursday in February.  Candlemas is a special day for celebrating children and childhood, and particularly for recognizing the maturation from helpless infancy to the assertive character of youth.

Carnival, on the other hand, has traditionally been for revelry of a more exuberant and adolescent nature, and in AUR a moment of respite between the Winterval fast starting on Resolution Day and the Lenten fast beginning Ash Wednesday.

Candlemas-Carnival Conjunct!

From the canonical scriptures, we know nothing of Jesus’ youth after the Disputation.*  But, there are clues in his later ministry as to how he spent his youth, clues that bring Christian meaning to Carnival … and a little Carnival spirit to an often-staid and dry Christianity.

In the Gospel of Matthew (11:18-19), Jesus is recorded as saying:

John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon!’  The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet Wisdom is vindicated by Her deeds.

Jesus clearly liked good drink, good food, and interesting company!

This is, of course, not to endorse the vicious extremes of drunkenness or alcoholism, but as part of a general celebration of the pleasures of God’s Creation, including food, music, and the company of our neighbors, Carnival certainly has Christian meaning with a liturgical connection to the life of Jesus himself.

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NOTE: Carnival celebrations for Reform Unitarians should not start (or continue, in years when Carnival begins before Candlemas) until after 6 p.m. that on Candlemas Thursday.

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* Non-canonical “infancy” Gospels, however, contain some interesting (if dubious) tales.

01/28/10

The Day Of The Spark

Saturday will be the Day of the Spark, the 12th Day of Action and end of the Winter Interval Season. 

The subject of this Ultimate Thursday’s posting will be “The Spark” itself: a story of inspiration for those who seek justice and truth in matters where politics and religion are already inextricably intertwined.

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01/25/10

Spear King Day

Genseric, meaning Spear King, leader of the much-maligned Vandals, was one of the last Unitarian Christian leaders in the ancient world. Why AUR would want to celebrate the life of a man who sacked Rome, persecuted other Christians, and whose people gave us the word “vandalize”?

The bad reputation of Genseric and his Vandals is a good example of history being written by the victors.  This is not to say that they were saints, particularly by the moral standards of the 21st Century.  However, compared to the “ecclesiastical mafia” of Trinitarian saint Athanasius* or the cultic totalitarianism of Theodosius “The Great” who declared Nicene Christianity the only allowable religion in the Empire, Genseric was a bleeding-heart liberal.

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01/24/10

Sleds and Cannons

Henry Knox was the son of a ship’s captain who died when the boy was nine.  Henry began working as a bookstore clerk at 12 to support his mother, and later opened his own bookstore.  If Knox’s story ended there, it would be a remarkable tale of trial, strength, survival, and ingenuity.

But, Henry Knox was also a soldier during the American Revolution, commissioned a Colonel by George Washington and tasked with bringing 60 tons of artillery from Crown Point and Ticonderoga in upstate New York to the Seige of Boston, a journey of 300 miles over unimproved terrain.

To make Knox’s mission even worse, snow began covering the ground.  Knox refused to see the heavy snowfall as a hindrance, instead seeking in it some opportunity.  Rather than plowing through the snow, he put the cannon on sleds and slid them over it.

Although it may seem out of place to celebrate a military maneuver as an act of piety, by accomodating providence rather than resisting it Henry Knox exemplified the spirit of “Thy Will Be Done.”  The arrival of these cannon in Boston a mere 56 days after their departure has been described as miraculous, but it was in fact the wise action of Henry Knox that achieved what many believed could not be achieved, by applying his God-given reason to a God-given blessing that others might have seen as a curse.

Today, on the 6th Day of Action, we celebrate Knox’s achievement.

01/19/10

12 Days of Action – Feast of the International Family

Today is the First of the 12 Days of Action, also known in AUR as International Family Day in honor of Saints Maris and Martha, a married couple from the Persian aristocracy, and their sons Audifax and Abakhum.   According to legend, this family immigrated to Rome to give aid to persecuted Christians, including providing proper burial for those martyred. 

For this offense, they were tortured and, when they refused to turn away from Christianity, executed: the men were beheaded and burned while Martha was drowned in a well.

This holiday is particularly celebrated for bringing together peoples of different cultures, nationalities, and social circumstances, for commemorating a marriage based on a mutual sense of mission, and for exemplifying (in the fire/water imagery of their martyrdom) the symbology of complementary virtues so central to “Tap Root” Christianity’s moral system, yet usually glossed over in Shallow Root and even Deep Root churches. 

Remember this day their bravery in the face of oppression, and their devotion to each other, to their convictions, and to universal justice.

01/13/10

Nika Week – Bipartisan Defiance of Tyranny

January 13th is the seventh of the 12 Days of Defiance, commemorating standing strong against tyranny. The first day honors St. Lucian, who resisted Pagan oppression during his nine years in prison. The sixth day honors John Hancock, Unitarian and first signator of the Declaration of Independence.

The final six days are dedicated to Nika Week, in honor of a moment of defiance in Constantinople during Christianity’s slow slide into the Dark Ages following the adoption of Trinitarianism.

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01/11/10

John Hancock Day – The 6th Day of Defiance

john_hancock_signature_civicsJanuary 12th is John Hancock Day for American Unitarian Reform, the 6th Day of Defiance on the AUR Interval Season liturgical calendar.

Not only was John Hancock a prominent Unitarian, but he has become iconic in American culture for a single, famous act that has out-shined (or over-shadowed, depending on your point-of-view) everything else he did during the Revolution: he signed his name almost absurdly large on the Declaration of Independence.

He has become so iconic, in fact, that his name has become slang for signature.

The moral lesson to be drawn from the icon of Hancock is the importance of committing oneself publicly to a good cause, regardless of the consequences. At the time, Hancock’s signature was an act of treason, and he was putting his own life at risk. By making his decision known in such a public and non-repudiable manner, he was enacting a sort of ritual, the same sort we see at weddings, confirmations, and in oath-taking like that in presidential inaugurations. Continue reading →

01/7/10

St. Lucian’s Day

Today is the first of the 12 Days of Defiance that begin the Winterval Season, the feast day of St. Lucian.  Lucian was the teacher of both St. Arius and St. Eusebius, the bishop who baptized Constantine, finally Christianizing the Emperor after a lifetime of religious ambiguity.

He was also the subject of a Notional Reform Unitarian Church image here at the AUR blog.

Not only was Lucian tortured and persecuted by the Romans for years, but his teachings were corrupted after his death by conflationist heretics attempting to reshape the honored Church Father in the mold of Trinitarianism.  He was martyred on this day in 312 CE.

01/6/10

Joyous Epiphany!

In the ancient church, the 6th of January was observed in celebration of not only the birth of Jesus and the adoration of the Magi and shepherds, but also other events such as his baptism by John and the wedding at Cana.

Taking a narrative view of ritual, AUR collects all of the birth-related events together in the Advent/Christmas season, reserving the stories of Jesus’ adulthood for the more solemn Lenten season.*

For this reason, Reform Unitarian Epiphany — closing out the Christmas season — commemorates the Adoration of the Magi and Shepherds, celebrating the universality of the Christian message, from high priests to herders, and from Jesus’ fellow religionists to representatives of a completely different faith tradition.

The local Jewish shepherds create a spiritually and morally significant contrast to the foreign Magi, high priests of Zoroastrianism: both the breadth of cultural idiom and the heights of socioeconomic class are bridged in their Adoration.  As the shepherds were guided by an angel who spoke to them, while the Magi were guided by a star they studied, these two visitations also represent personal and impersonal idiomatic approaches to truth.

May you have a Joyous Epiphany!

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* The Temple-related events of Jesus’ childhood, including his presentation and later disputation, are collectively celebrated on Candlemas, the first Thursday in February.

12/30/09

Resolution Day

New Year’s Day is a day for resolutions, often taking the form of freeing ourselves from slavery to addictions, obsessions, and other bad habits.  This renewal through promises to be stronger, healthier, and wiser celebrates one of the cornerstones of American Unitarian Reform: commitment of character.

AUR strives not to promote false salvation, moral justification, and consolation on the cheap, whether its the sort of “bow to dogma and your soul will be spared” comfort of many conservative churches or the “I’m okay, you’re okay, nothing we believe really matters” comfort of many liberal churches.

Spiritual peace and strength are not won by reciting a confession or catechism as if they were magic spells, or by impulsively tossing your life over to God like a hot potato for which you can abdicate all responsibility.

Nor is spiritual peace achieved through conflict-averse relativism or laissez-faire creedlessness, what Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams described unflatteringly as religion you can’t flunk.

Peace, strength, and freedom are achieved only through a resolute struggle, by committing of one’s character to moral growth and accepting a higher Good beyond one’s desires and instincts.  New Year’s Day, what AUR calls Resolution Day, provides a unique opportunity to stamp these commitments into our memory at the turning of the calendar.
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