Save the Earth?! Perhaps it will Save Us

As I continue to ponder the issue of geocentric Holydays, this thought comes to mind: Perhaps we need saving more than the earth does, and perhaps - just perhaps the earth is part of that salvific plan.

Christianity is growing greener each day. Christians are considering their part in the ever growing story of planetary struggle of pollution, famine, dwindling resources and all. In all this growing interest to save our planet from a demise, we are in some way seeking to save ourselves, and future generations from a self-induced second coming.

Yet in our sensitivity to the earth's groanings (see Romans 8 on this), I am not sure we are really sensitive to the planet and the heart of its groanings.

There is a holiness to the earth. Its created beauty is God infused, and it carries clues to God's greatness, and wondrous love. Should we become sensitive to this voice of glory crying out in creation, I am sure that our care for creation will increase simply by the ever growing sense of wonder, and the need to protect that wonder. At the same time our ability to discover the voice of God in creation will transform us as we read His story in His handiwork. Perhaps if we could really read the clues of creation it might save us from foolish ways.

This brings me back to considering the need to celebrate Geocentric Holydays. Times like the Solstice become Thin Places calling us into deeper places with God.

SynchroBlog - Geocentric Versus Anthropocentric Holydays: Solstice and Christmas

Here in America our Holidays tend to be based around the celebration of the activities of human beings. Labor Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving , even Easter and Christmas celebrate the activities of human enterprise and often the celebration of overcoming impossible odds. Christmas which is nearly upon us is the celebration of the coming of Christ, and even so it is the celebration of a man - although God - still a man who did great things.

These celebrations are good - needed - appropriate, and especially in the case of Christmas and Easter needed for the health off Christianity, but as we enter in to the time of Christmas and its near neighbor the Winter Solstice I wonder if we have lost the mystery of the geocentric holydays. In agrarian cultures days were celebrated around harvest and planting and seasons. The feasts of Israel include both geocentric holidays based in the harvest, and the anthropocentric/theocentric holidays such as Passover with the deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt.

In my culture only Halloween, and New Year's Eve are calendrically based in the changes of the seasons, and even then nothing is remembered about these days which ties us back to the earth and changing seasons.

I believe that God has given us the seasons with beautiful lessons mysteriously hidden in the dynamic changes. I do not believe that we should stop celebrating th achievements of man, and certainly not the achievements of God through men, but a return to geocentric holyday celebrations may well yield a return to the mysteries of God as they are hidden in the seasons He has given us.


Redeeming the Season is the Topic for this month's SynchroBlog. Now there are a variety of seasons being celebrated at the end of each year from Christmas to Hannukah to Eid al-Adha and Muharram, from the Winter Solstice to Kwanzaa and Yule. Some people celebrate none of these seasonal holydays, and do so for good reason. Below is a variety of responses to the subject of redeeming the season. From the discipline of simplicity, to uninhibited celebration, to refraining from celebrating, to celebrating another's holyday for the purpose of identification with their culture the subject is explored. Follow the links below to "Redeeming the Season." For more holidays to consider see here


Recapturing the Spirit of Christmas at Adam Gonnerman's Igneous Quill
Swords into Plowshares at Sonja Andrew's Calacirian
Fanning the Flickering Flame of Advent at Paul Walker's Out of the Cocoon
Lainie Petersen at Headspace
Eager Longing at Elizaphanian
The Battle Rages at Bryan Riley's Charis Shalom
Secularizing Christmas at JohnSmulo.com
There's Something About Mary at Hello Said Jenelle
Geocentric Versus Anthropocentric Holydays at Phil Wyman's Square No More
Celebrating Christmas in a Pluralistic Society at Matt Stone's Journeys in Between
The Ghost of Christmas Past at Erin Word's Decompressing Faith
Redeeming the season -- season of redemption by Steve Hayes
Remembering the Incarnation at Alan Knox' The Assembling of the Church
A Biblical Response to a Secular Christmas by Glenn Ansley's Bad Theology
Happy Life Day at The Agent B Files
What's So Bad About Christmas? at Julie Clawson's One Hand Clapping

The Evening of the Night and Day

Evening is evening with day. The time of night has caught the time of light, and they stand in equal balance in our day. Slowly our nights grow longer, and our days grow shorter.

Until this very moment I have not been ready for the coming of the Fall with itas threat of Winter. I am a Southern California boy living in New England. The Fall has always been my favorite season, but the shortness of the Salem Summers have taken me by surprise.

I am ready now.

Today's new Pagans celebrate the cycle of the seasons. The longest days, the longest nights, the equinoxes with their evening of the day and night all speak to them of change and life. The holy days of the Jews were set at harvests and at memorials of historic events.

As American Christians, we only really celebrate historic events or human resource. Days are based around great men: Martin Luther King, George Washington, Columbus, Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims, the 4th of July and our founding fathers. Days are based around human activity: Memorial Day and war, or Labor Day and work. Of course, our biggest days are founded in God's movement on history: Christmas and the Manger, and Easter and the Cross. I certainly want to honor the wonderful works of my fellow man, but I wonder if perhaps the days we celebrate are far more humanistic than that which the Pagans celebrate.

Neo-Pagans see the seasonal changes moved by the hands of God (okay, in their case it may be the gods, and goddesses.) We celebrate days based upon human activity. Even the celebration of Easter and Christmas are the celebration of the Man Christ Jesus, and most of us barely recognize the God Who is above and beyond humanity. Strangely, the only holiday we celebrate in common is the holiday which most evangelicals flee for fear of it having a demonic source - Halloween, the last harvest celebration.

Could it be that our understanding of holidays (holy-days) here in America is sadly anthropocentric? Is it somehow all about us, and lacking in a view outward to God and HIs Creation? I wonder if we might learn a thing or two if we could balance our celebrations between man centered, and creation centered holy-days?

I am happy for the coming of the Fall now. I am reminded that though dark, cold times may come, I have a place to hide away by the warm fire of God's love. Somehow labor day was devoid of such lessons for me. I barely noticed that day go by, but the autumnal equinox vividly catches my imagination each year.