The movie Groundhog Day was, for me, one of the funniest movies ever. Bill Murray played a down on his luck weather forecaster assigned a reporting job that no one wanted: reporting on whether or not Punxsutawney Phil would see his shadow on Groundhog Day. In a freak accident, Murray gets stuck in a time loop in Punxsutawney. Every day when Murray wakes up, it’s Groundhog Day. Over and over again. Every day the same as the last.
Kind of like real life.
In the movie, though, through the constant repetition of his days, Murray experiences change and growth – and ultimately freedom and redemption.
By in large, our days are like Murray’s. One day much like the day before. And the next. Sometimes grueling, sometimes exhilarating. But often with a sameness that can be comforting and frustrating and demoralizing – all at the same time. Change – and growth – if perceivable at all, are incremental.
Because of this, it is easy to lose track of time. A year spins away before we know it. Unless we somehow mark the way, we often fail to see the unfolding of our lives.
I mark change with the seasons of the year. Next week is the Winter Solstice. It is my favorite day of all.
The Winter Solstice has been celebrated by peoples and cultures since neolithic times. The Christians appropriated it for Christmas. The Jews celebrate their Festival of Light. For the last six months, the days have grown shorter and shorter in the Northern hemisphere. After the darkest day and the darkest night of the year, marked by the Winter Solstice, it is the time when the earth turns again toward the sun. It is the time when we all begin the journey back toward the light. Slowly, incrementally. Almost imperceptibly.
Our lives too unfold like this.
Karen Armstrong, perhaps the foremost religious writer of our time, wrote a memoir entitled The Spiral Staircase. She uses this metaphor of the spiral staircase to describe the evolution of her life: I toiled round and round in pointless circles, covering the same ground, repeating the same mistakes, quite unable to see where I was going. Yet all the time, without realizing it, I was slowly climbing out of the darkness.”
The earth does that as is passes through the Solstice and moves back toward the light. We do it too – sometimes with grace – oftentimes not- usually in fits and starts – and usually with a fair amount of tripping over the staircase.
But with hope we turn again.
Happy Solstice.
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there
is nothing again.Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only lace
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoiceAnd pray to God to have mercy upon us
And I pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgment not be too heavy upon usBecause these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to bat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.– T.S. Eliot
Thanks for the reminder of the re-turn. You speak truth Walt. Happy Solstice to you!