Today is the last day of January. Tomorrow is February 1, which seems like a seismic shift, for some reason or another. Tomorrow the calendar turns over and another month, the second month, begins. I am one month older, it is one month closer to spring, or it just just the day after Saturday, in an endless parade of days.
January seems interminable. Why does the month of January seem so long? December has the same number of days, but does not seem so long. "What, it's still January?" I catch myself saying. "It seems like it has always been January."
February, on the other hand, is the snap of a finger, the blink of an eye. It is gone before I know it, which is okay, since I am trying to get through winter and closer to the days when the sun and the warmth will re-appear, and I can plant something in the ground, and nurture it. February is a brief cold wind, except that it is really only three days shorter than January. Three measly days. Seventy-two hours.
Why does January seem so long?
Why does February seem so short?
Why do I spend my time looking forward to some other time than now?
Why do I spend my time looking back to some terrible wonderful time in the past?
Perhaps there is no 'ordinary' time. We only make it 'ordinary' because we could not bear to stand in front of the burning bush all of the time.
Maybe each moment is a seismic shift, a turn of the calendar page, a transformation, whether we want it or not.
Today is the last day of January.
Tomorrow I will wake up and it will be February 1, and the Lord's Day, and there will be a seismic shift. Or not.
It will be a New Day. Or it will just be another one of a parade of endless days. Your choice.
Somewhere, a bush will be burning.
I don't know why I know this. I just do.
1 comment:
What a striking piece. First, the differences in human experience: December seems interminable to me, while January is a flash in a pan. And then the commonality: If a bush is burning somewhere, then it applies, regardless of our individual circumstances.
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