Calendar

So, today is 8/8/08. I guess 8 is a special 'prosperity' number in China, so today there are many people getting married.

I need to be getting ready for our next influx of company. Dawson had many friends here last night. I wasn't sure what was happening, so am glad I made a large pot of spaghetti and took homemade french (Italian) bread out of the freezer. They played a card game and then had a campfire and roasted marshmallows (thanks to it having started the rainy season, finally! - because there's been a fire ban). Now, him and guest Bonnie, are on a road trip with the college group.

August 1 is called Lammas Day - meaning 'loaf-mass' day. It's in connection with First Fruits. The first of the reaped wheat was ground and baked into a loaf of bread and offered in church. The Celtic year divided its calendar in four at February 1st, May 1st, August 1st and then November 1st. It was a day of looking forward to all the year's harvest bounty to come. Any failure due to weather or whatever, would mean no food until the following year's harvest.

Today we have our food coming from all parts of the world and we can be out of touch with the agrarian rhythms of life. I have been harvesting salad greens for awhile and snow peas, but tomatoes are just about to turn red, zucchini has begun. Winter squash and melons are just forming, and green beans, and soon my broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage will be forming their heads. So I'm not so out of touch, and am thankful for the fresh picked flavor and a freezer/storage full of home-grown produce throughout winter.

Lammas too is basically 40 days following Midsummer and John the Baptist Day. I posted about what that timing means to me, John's message, 'I must decrease and Jesus must increase', right in the midst of the full blown busyness of summer. John's sown seeds of needing to attend to my heart in the midst of summer. And Lammas reminds me of the giftings of first fruits in my life, growing and maturing. (The Bible and Calendar are full of days of forty!)

Wednesday, August 6th, was The Transfiguration of Jesus day. Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain; there He was transfiguratus est, "His face did shine as the sun", 'His outside changing to match the reality of His inside'. On either side of Him appeared Moses and Elijah. Art work depicts them representing the Law and the Prophets - Jesus fulfills the law and prophecy. I like that it's another place in scripture where the Trinity is evident: God's voice out of a light-radiant cloud, "This is My Son, marked by My love, focus of My delight. Listen to Him."

The metamorphothe, we've translated as transfigured, really can't be conveyed - God's glory beyond our grasping. I find it interesting to contemplate Peter's wanting to make three memorials, tabernacles, for help in remembering or visualizing or worshiping the event. We so often need to have a man-made image to help us remember the story. Hopefully that's all we want - something as a physical visual to remind our heart. But so often it goes further, like a golden calf. Human nature so often turns icons into idols.