Where is reason amid a season of holy days?

OFF/BEAT GLIDEWELL E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published December 25, 2001

Many of you probably didn't realize it, but we reached the high (or as you may see it, low) point of winter on Friday afternoon, at 2:20 p.m., when we passed through the winter solstice.

In the Northern Hemisphere, that is. In the Southern Hemisphere it is the summer solstice.

I once asked my colleague Howard Troxler, an astronomy buff, to explain seasons to me and he finally got it across that the Earth tilts 23 degrees on its axis, making its northern or "top" part closer to the sun for half of the year and its southern or "bottom" part the other half. From that, daylight saving time notwithstanding, we get the apparent lengths of days including Friday's (the shortest) and the summer solstice (the longest).

(Now Troxler will write me and explain to me how I got it wrong, but I was trying, honest.)

A good many religious and holiday observances are pegged to astronomical phenomena and, although Jesus is the "reason for the season" for a good many Americans, the timing of Christmas and some other holidays have foundations more in the tilt of the earth on its axis and its position relative to other heavenly bodies than to historical exactness.

Nobody is sure when Christ was born, although some Christian scholars place it in October, and calendar changes over the centuries have placed the date in the era B.C. (before Christ) or B.C.E. (before the common era).

Traditionally, we are told that early Christians, to avoid persecution, held the holiday to coincide with Saturnalia, a Roman holiday connected, as most pagan holidays, to seasonal matters. The two blended, and Pope Julius about 350 A.D. (or C.E. for the politically correct) declared Dec. 25 as the official date on which to celebrate Christmas.

But this is a season for other holidays, also.

Muslims just completed their observance of the Ramadan, the ninth month of the Muslim calendar during which they believe that Mohammed began hearing revelations from God more than 1,000 years ago. At the end of a month of fasting and self-denial, they celebrate with a feast called Eid al-Fitr, ending the fasting.

Jews just finished Hanukkah, the eight-day holiday that commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and the Maccabees' victory over the Syrians in 165 B.C.E., during which enough oil to last only one evening lasted, instead, for a miraculous eight evenings.

Some African-Americans celebrate Kwanzaa (from Dec. 26 through Jan. 1) a holiday invented in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, a professor at California State University, with the goal of strengthening African-American families, strengthening education and developing unity and strength.

Wiccans and other pagans celebrate Yule, or other solstice-oriented holidays that take specific note that the sun, which seems to begin going away at the beginning of the season, reaches the point at which it seems to begin to return.

And Buddhists celebrate Dec. 8 as Bodhi Day, the anniversary of Buddha's enlightenment.

All, or most of this, is even more significant given the state of the world today.

None of the major (or minor, for that matter) religions that have observances this time of year see it as anything other than a time for devotion, renewal, celebration and good will -- at least on paper.

But Jews and Palestinians are at each other's throats in renewed violence in the Middle East. The predominantly Christian United States is at war with Muslim extremist terrorists in Afghanistan (so far) and some African-Americans and some whites are in a political verbal uproar in St. Petersburg over a single remark made by a white police chief that offended some African-Americans.

Has there ever been a season, in recent memory, where it was more important for more people to take serious stock of the tenets of what they say are their religious beliefs and to examine what role they play in the shaping of our lives and history as a race -- a human race?

Or is "good will toward men," and similar phrases in other religions, a subject to be honored more, as Hamlet said, in the breach than in the observance?

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright