A Beginning Word
A Beginning Word
NEW YEAR’S EVE—A DIVINE NUDGE
Tonight I have been meditating on New Year’s resolutions, wondering if I need to undertake any for this next year. Actually, I dislike these attempts at self-improvement. For the most part they are simply humanly initiated efforts that usually last about two and a half weeks. Still, while I was holding the idea before myself, I sensed a nudge . . . perhaps a divine nudge. It came to me in two words: “learn humility.”
Hmm. I wonder, Should I give this next year to see what I can learn about humility by study and by experience? Both the Bible and the devotional masters give high priority to this virtue.
Yet it is a virtue that is not thought much of today.
Perhaps I could follow the calendar year and then maybe I can keep a journal record of my observations and musings. I’m not particularly good at journal writing . . . I probably have a dozen half-written journals sitting over there on my bookshelves. Still, I’d like to see how things develop here.
NEW YEAR’S DAY—THE LAKOTA CALENDAR
Thoughts about writing on the subject of humility keep pressing in on me. If I am going to use the calendar year as the organizing principle for this project, I think I would prefer to use one of the Native American calendars rather than using the traditional names for the months . . . January, February, etc. Their intentional rootedness in the natural world is a welcome departure from the scattered, patchwork nature of today’s social rhythms.
All of the Native American calendars have their merits; however, I like the Lakota Moon Calendar best, especially its close connection to the earth. There are two differences between the Latin/Gregorian and the Lakota calendars to be aware of. The most obvious difference is that the Lakota calendar is divided into thirteen moons (of twenty-eight days) rather than the twelve months we are acquainted with in the Latin/Gregorian calendar. Hence, there is a rough (though not exact) correspondence to the months most of us would recognize. Second, the Lakota calendar (like most Native American calendars) begins with spring since spring symbolizes the start of a new year through the birth of new plant and animal life. Instead, I will begin with winter and “The Hard Moon,” which roughly corresponds to January in the Latin/Gregorian calendar. This is when the idea of studying the topic of humility first came to me.
The Lakota are the northern plains people, and, while a part of my personal background is Ojibwa (my paternal grandmother, who died before I was born, was Native American—Ojibwa; also called Chippewa, self-named Anishinaabe), I find the Lakota calendar most attractive to me. Perhaps learning more about the culture that gave rise to it will yield some interesting insights. The reverence in Native American cultures for creation contrasts with a contemporary culture that presumes it can engineer human society to achieve more and better.