I'm at a point in my life where I'm trying to define what's meaningful to me and what's important enough to me to celebrate. What
kick-started all of this was: 1) I had no desire to celebrate Christmas this year and yet I had nothing else planned to take its place; and 2) watching the
movie "Interstellar" with Mc over Christmas vacation. The movie deals with scientists traveling to other worlds to look for one that can sustain the human race because Earth is suffering from a blight which is making food scarce. It's a good movie, I recommend it.
The afterlife (if there even is one) and our purpose in the universe-- that's all beyond any
living person's realm of understanding right now. But what I do understand is
Earth, the one planet in all the galaxies we've discovered so far that can
enable us to survive. I have a desire to celebrate the Earth and show my appreciation for the incredible world that it is.
Here are the days and events that we in the United States celebrate:
USA's federal holidays:
New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr.'s and George Washington's birthdays, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
USA's other observances:
Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, Saint Patrick's Day, Earth Day, Arbor Day, Mother's Day, Flag Day, Father's Day, Patriot Day, Halloween, and Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.
Religious holidays:
Easter, Ramadan, Hanuka, Kwanza, and perhaps others that I don't know about that aren't mainstream.
You can find the basic details for most of those here: http://www.usa.gov/citizens/holidays.shtml
As I look at each of those holidays and days of celebration, I see that most of them are to celebrate people or events that are important to American citizens, and almost none of them are centered around the Earth or its seasons.
So first off, I've decided to celebrate the Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Fall Equinox, and Winter Solstice because those are natural, reoccurring events for the Earth. In addition to that, I'm changing the day I celebrate New Year's Day. The Gregorian calendar doesn't follow the seasons; I have no idea why New Year's Day occurs in the middle of winter. In Earth terms, Spring means new life for grass and trees and many animals, and it makes sense to me to count the first day of Spring as the start of the new year. So this year when I created my 2015 wall calendar, I designed the calendar's year to start in March 2015 and end in February 2016. Mc supports me in this, which makes me smile. I will also celebrate Earth Day and Arbor Day, and I'll still watch the movie "Groundhog Day" on Groundhog Day. :)
As far as the non-Earth celebrations, I'll celebrate Mc's and the kids' and my birthdays, my wedding anniversary, and Mother's Day and Father's Day. Mc likes the idea of a day celebrating love, so we'll celebrate a kind of Valentine's Day, but it won't be on Feb. 14th and we won't call it a Valentine's Day celebration either.
I will celebrate Independence Day because that's the day we
officially said "We've had enough!" to an oppressive power and declared
that we're going to do things our way. It took guts for the
members of Congress to sign the Declaration of Independence and for our troops to fight
for our freedom, and I appreciate that. However, I absolutely will not celebrate "Patriot Day" or "Pearl
Harbor Remembrance Day" because I don't want to remember
events that were physical attacks on our country and which brought us full force
into WWII and seemingly permanent conflicts in the Middle East, respectively. Nope, to me that's nothing to celebrate or remember (especially since I know no one personally who was killed in either of those attacks, so I have no one's memory to honor).
Thanksgiving hasn't sat well with me for a long time because the Native
Americans helped the European settlers survive their first winter here,
and then our government turned around and screwed over the Native American tribes
later on. Trail of Tears, anyone? There are many more acts occurring all the time which threaten their sacred lands and the local drinking water, it's despicable! So no, I will not celebrate
Thanksgiving even though the historical meaning has been lost in recent
years and it's become a being-grateful-in-general holiday. I will also not celebrate Columbus Day. Interestingly enough, Seattle has changed the name of Columbus Day to "Indigenous Peoples' Day"; you can read about it here on the NPR website: http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/10/12/354274630/seattle-swaps-columbus-day-for-indigenous-peoples-day
I'm no longer a Christian, and so Jesus-centered celebrations like Christmas and Easter aren't important to me; however, mainstream Easter celebrations involve eggs and hatched chicks and bunnies, which is closer to celebrating Spring than Jesus's resurrection, so I'll find a way to incorporate secular Easter celebrations with the Spring Equinox.
I feel a little radical, but at the same time I choose to see it as thinking out-of-the-box. There isn't one correct way to celebrate something, and there's nothing that says I have to celebrate anything. I've chosen the USA-sanctioned holidays and celebrations that are important to me and I'm choosing to ignore the others.
Part of me hates that I keep doing this to myself-- deconstructing parts of my life and then rebuilding them in a way that fits who I am. It started with the church and now I'm doing it with other areas of my life, too. I suffer from nagging feelings of pointlessness, which I will likely have for the rest of my life. It takes some effort for me to ignore those feelings; and if I'm going to find any meaning in my life, I need to start from the ground up and create meaning. It's a difficult process for me but it feels nice when I've sorted things out and I have a plan and I'm ready to move forward.
3 comments:
Hey Leese! This is in no way, trying to start an argument, but I didn't follow your reasoning with some things. I guess I'll just address one because it's a long response haha. It has to do with the 4th of July/War paragraph. Couldn't you say that with the signing of the Declaration of Independence (4th of July) it brought the Revolutionary War, and then it brought about states, which fought, which were divided and killed each other later during the Civil War? So wasn't it a bad thing? Of course the right answer is no. There was unrest that followed, but freedom and independence came with a price. But overall it was a good thing. So you can either view it as the start of Independence or the start of 2 major wars. With WWII/Pearl Harbor stuff I think the same principle exists. While I, too, don't know anyone who died then,there's a sense of respect that I think soldiers and others deserve. Back in our country's early history to bring about freedom, and in more recent centuries as well. Against England back in the 18th century, and in the 20th century against Germany, Russia, Japan who were oppressing some of our allies, and openly attacking us. I think it just depends on the perspective you take. You can look at all of these dates in history as the beginning of death and destruction, or you can look at them as a fight for defending rights and freedoms. The same thing is for 9/11 observances. I didn't know anyone in New York, but by remembering the attack, there is a sense of unity that people feel and it's remembered to have people come together in peace. Pearl Harbor isn't to remember any one individual that you or I know, it's to reverence those who were innocently slaughtered and those who later came together to stand up for what they believed in, and fought for it. Of course there is debate as to whether every event that followed was justified, but that's another topic. If there were were a Hiroshima or Nagasaki day, it would be good to remember them as well.
Hope all that makes sense. It's about how you view those days is basically what I'm saying.
~Amy
In reality there's no ignoring 9/11; anyone who was old enough to remember that day when it happened will always remember it. I remember it as the day our country came together and mourned the loss of so much life. I suppose I should separate "remembering" and "celebrating", since those are two different things and they require different actions. I will remember 9/11 and probably Pearl Harbor day since it's on my calendar, but I will do nothing to celebrate them.
Hope you can remember and celebrate in meaningful ways. Reading your blog has made me think about the meanings behind holidays and how I can personally find meaning behind some of them.
~Amy
Post a Comment