Sun and Moon

I have been pondering that this coming weekend is a three-day weekend. It's nice that I just had to hang in there for two weeks after the holidays, and then I get a little break.

In the church year, the next big event will be Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. I looked it up and in 2011, Ash Wednesday is March 9, and Easter is April 24. That's pretty late. It seems like usually Ash Wednesday is in February. It seems like just a few years ago we had an exceptionally early Easter, that actually fell in March. Is that possible? Yes. I searched online and in 2008 Easter was on March 23. So three years later, we're a month and a day later. I think Easter can fall as late as May. Nope. I looked that up, and it doesn't happen. I read that Easter will fall on one of the days from March 22 to April 25. So this year's Eater is almost as late as it can be.

Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.

Speaking of full moons, we had some crazy calls at work that made me wonder if the moon was full, but I just looked that up online, too, and the moon is at 39% of full. I put a moon phase gadget onto my igoogle page. The moon is waxing.

I like the word waxing. It has a fine, archaic ring to it. It occurs frequently in the King James Version of the Bible. Now I am waxing sleepy. Like Jacob, I'll gather up my feet into my bed, although I hope just to sleep, not to yield up the ghost.

I know someone who has a fear that if he falls asleep he may not wake up, and it gives him insomnia. To me, that would be the perfect way to go. No fear beforehand, just lie down, go quietly to sleep, and wake up in heaven. We all should have such an end.

And perhaps it is a good thing to acknowledge, as poets often have, that sleep and death resemble each other, so that each night we have a reminder of the inevitability of our death. In our contemporary culture, to think about your own death is considered morbid. There have been times when contemplating your own mortality was considered praiseworthy, and a thoughtful man might keep a skull in his study as a reminder. Ew. I wouldn't go that far, but to consider that you could go to sleep and not wake up is a good motivation to put your soul in order before you go to sleep.

On the Guide Meridian between Lynden and Bellingham is a sign that says, Judgement Day, May 21, 2011.  The owner of that property is evidently a follower of Harold Camping, who is predicting Judgment Day on that date. I think it is wrong to predict a certain date. However, the sign is a good reminder to live in expectation of Christ's return. I ask myself, as I drive by, if I believed that, would I do anything different than I have planned? Because if so, I should do what I would do in the face of judgment. I see it on my way to work sometimes, and I believe that if that date were right, it would be okay if I kept going to work every day until then. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Thessaloniki:

Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2) .  Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2). For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10-13).

So I feel that by going to work every day and doing my job, I am obeying Paul's exhortation.