Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

One of the things I still find odd here in the desert is the movement of the seasons. I remember every August in New Haven, we would go to Shakespeare in the Park in the evenings. We’d bring snacks and drinks and the like. We also had to bring jackets and blankets because it would be cold as the sun went down. That was kind of the official start of fall for us there. That was our pattern for many years.

Here though, it’s perpetual summer—or at least not-yet-winter—for the whole year it seems. As I write this, the boys are in shorts and playing in the sun. Those rhythms once familiar are thrown off.

I suspect though that those who grew up here know the signs to look for when the seasons are changing. I know that it’s no longer Sonoran Toad season nor tarantula season. It’s also, thank goodness, not scorpion season anymore in our back yard.

But I wonder if our culture has lost sense of its signs? Now that our stores start decorating for Christmas in August and Advent calendars have become a generic term for countdown calendars of all kinds how do we mark the official start and stop of things?

We used to think of the day after Thanksgiving as the start of the Christmas season. Of course, that was a huge distortion of the traditional twelve days of Christmas. But even that Black Friday start has been subsumed by the perpetual commerce made possible in the internet age.

If commerce and culture don’t have steady markers for these seasons in our lives, it seems even more pressing that we mark them in our own homes. We need the rituals of the seasons to mark the grace of God. We need the shape of the year to be shaped by the holy story. How we pattern our time will shape how we pattern our longings, hopes, and desires.

What are those patterns, rituals, and practices in your home? We are all pattern-seeking, story-making creatures and the signs, patterns, and stories we hold onto will hold onto us. What are you holding onto this season?

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert