VIEW FROM THE PEW
Much ado about something that pretty much passes us by out here in the tropics. That was my observation as various TV weatherpersons last week talked about the “last day of summer.”
Despite assuming the scientific title of meteorologist, most of those cheery chroniclers of climate conditions did not display a firm grasp of the planetary phenomenon which dictates the change in seasons from summer to autumn. There is no law setting a limit on summertime and certainly no edict from the travel industry that fall shall begin on Sept. 22, not in this place where September can be hotter than the first day of summer in June.
I’ve been musing about autumn and its physical, mental and even spiritual impact on people who face the onslaught of autumn head-on and even celebrate it. I guess my train of thought was set in motion by being much further north on a vacation trip. As days get shorter and nights get colder, Mother Nature adjusts her domain, with wild animals growing a thicker coat and digging deeper burrows and migratory birds answering their instinct to fly south to survive. That was the storyline of our game warden father; the lesson was don’t mourn the end of summer. Embrace the change in seasons and know that trees aren’t dying when their leaves fall; collect those colorful farewell postcards to summer … and go get the rake.
Approaching wintertime stimulates humans to tend their habitats, too; time to mend the roof, strengthen the windows, clear the rain gutters, fix the faults in heating, plumbing. And for government agencies, the deadline looms to repair the roads and fill the potholes. Every project that you put off during fair weather now has an urgent deadline ahead of freezing temperatures and snowfall. It’s also a time that up north residents invest in bales of hay, cornstalks and an array of colorful pumpkins and gourds, fall harvest decorations because they actually celebrate this chilling, darkening season.
Autumn is not a big deal here, just sunset at the beach a little sooner. Cold weather isn’t looming and the trees aren’t turning flame red and glowing gold as frost kills the leaves. We have glowing colors of tropical plants all year long. So other than the purveyors of coffee and pastries digging out the pumpkin spices, and chain stores trapped in the mainland marketing pattern of darker, heavier clothing, ho hum.
More than one transplanted northerner I know has philosophized that our tropical paradise could benefit from the energy generated by the change in seasons. You don’t have to look far to see things that need fixing. I don’t have to step outside to find examples of delayed maintenance. Of course, the islands do benefit economically from the migratory instincts of people escaping the cold with a trip to the tropics. And lucky us, we celebrate September when the kolea come back from the arctic tundra fulfilling their own migratory instinct.
As I heard a weather person blow through the simplified version of bye-bye summer, I was thinking that it would be good timing for a back-to-school science lesson. It’s timely, too, because we’ve been watching recent launches of spaceships and the new class of tourists orbiting around the earth. The last day of summer is all about earth and its own year-long orbit around the sun. It is one of only two times each year when this planet is “tilted neither toward or away from the sun,” according to the National Weather Service website. The other time will be in March for the spring equinox — Latin for equal night — meaning an equal time of darkness and daylight that day. For us here just 1,374 miles from the equator, daylight doesn’t vary very much all year. At the start of summer June 21, the sun shone for 13 hours and 26 minutes; at the winter solstice on Dec. 22, we will have 10 hours and 50 minutes of daylight.
On our visit to a global location 3,025 miles from the equator, we experienced the stimulating change of seasons. Our family was battening down the hatches, checking on the snow-moving equipment, investing in a new furnace, reluctant to tuck away the lawn furniture just yet. Sunset dwindled noticeably day by day. It was AC on one week and windows open to chill wind the next. At that latitude, the sun shone for 15 hours 22 minutes on June 21 and there will be only 9 hours of daylight on Dec. 22. I remember childhood winters, when it was already getting dark when we headed home from school.
I don’t remember being a student fascinated with planetary movements back in a day before “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” took our imaginations way out there. Now I just love to ponder what we know about our universe and how much of that science was figured out by ancient people without calculators and telescopes. It began with shepherds and farmers whose work was timed by what they observed. They figured out moon phases and predicted sunrises, and left us evidence of prehistoric scientists in the fabulous stone creations that captured the sun’s rays reaching a specific spot on a specific day.
I was led into a fascination with calendars and seasons by the late Father John Engelcke, an Episcopal priest in Honolulu back in my days as a religion writer. It all started with my tapping him for an explanation about how Christians decide when to celebrate Easter. I mean, we can plan on the set date for celebrating the birth of Jesus, thanks to the machinations of church calendar creators centuries ago. But Easter is a movable feast and a lot of Christians don’t know why. It’s tied to the date of the spring equinox in March, plus the phases of the moon, and is linked to how Jewish people calculate the timing of their Passover holy day through the ancient Hebrew lunar calendar. Enough about that spring feast, this is supposed to be about autumn.
My musings about this time of year were wrapped up in thinking about another profound Jewish religious observance set by that lunar calendar dating back thousands of years. Jews observed their high holidays in early September this year. It’s a 10-day period between Rosh Hashanah, which marks the beginning of a new year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Rosh Hashanah couldn’t be more different from the secular New Year celebrations with its focus on fun and feasting and drinking.
Observant Jews fast and spend hours of prayer time together at synagogues and at home contemplating their relationship with their creator and ways in which they have broken commandments. One prayer goes: “Thank you, our God and God of our fathers, that you forgive all our sins, pardon all our iniquities and grant atonement for all our transgressions through Y’shua, the Messiah. For it is written: if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Making amends
To my mind, having a heart-to-heart talk with God about my sins is not the hardest part of the new year observance. Jews are also called to right any wrongs they have committed against other people as they start a new year. That means apologizing and making amends to the victim of your bad deed. Imagine doing that, not just a texted shorthand “sorry, brah” or “oops, my bad.” Picture yourself in a face-to-face with your father, the boss, your co-worker, a dear friend, an annoying acquaintance, someone you do business with. And admitting that you lied, cheated, bad-mouthed, stole, betrayed … God knows what.
Even further, to fully observe the sacred season, you must decide to change and stop your transgression.
Hey, and you thought being a Catholic participating in the sacrament of reconciliation is hard! We inherited that Jewish tradition when Jesus taught his disciples how to address God: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Jewish scholars, who have had thousands of years to interpret their scriptures, have written about what happens when your victim says “nope, won’t forgive you.” They say after a certain number of times, you’re off the hook. Jesus wasn’t so lenient when, as the story goes in Matthew’s Gospel, Peter asked how often he must forgive someone who did him wrong, and suggested a limit of seven times. Jesus said no, forgive 70 times seven.
The Jewish ritual of apologizing and forgiving feels very much in sync with the practical rituals of autumn, preparing for the harsh weather ahead. Reconnecting with people separated from you because of harsh words, hard feelings, arguments, misunderstandings and even more serious misdeeds is a prudent way to prepare for not just the next season but the rest of your life. Apology and forgiveness fits right into our Christian calendar. It could be a head start into the season of Advent, the time of preparation for celebrating Christmas.
Meanwhile, there is an autumn observance underway at the Franciscan Catholic Worker House on the grounds of St. Elizabeth Episcopal Church in Kalihi-Palama. The outreach center at 720 N. King St. dispenses food and other assistance to poor and homeless people. It is run by a team of volunteers led by Wally Inglis, a longtime Catholic social justice activist.
With members of a Franciscan lay order as the core of the team, the center is celebrating St. Francis with a “season of Francistide” which will continue through Oct. 4, the anniversary of his death. You may think I’ve gotten off track by skipping to the 12th-century monk who turned away from his privileged life of luxury to work with the poor. He set a model for Catholic charity and social action that influenced the church to this day.
OK, I admit to a wandering mind. But St. Francis fits perfectly into the topic of astronomy and seasons. His “Canticle of the Sun” famously praised God for all of creation including “Brother Sun who brings the day … and he is beautiful and radiant. Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars in heaven, you formed them clear and precious and beautiful. Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth who sustains us and governs us and produces varied fruits with colored flowers and herbs.”
See … planets, seasons and saints, they all fit together.
I confess to a personal motive in mentioning Wallyhouse, which has operated since 2018 with the goal of “nurturing the poor in body, mind and spirit” in the spirit of Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day. If you look it up online you can learn more about the interfaith collaboration that supports the effort, their evergrowing outreach and perhaps you will be moved to support them as I do.
