Week 2 - Day 2 Thursday Psalm 104 vs 19

 You made the moon to mark the seasons, the sun that knows the hour of its setting.

This is the first day of fall. Yesterday marked the halfway point of the journey of the sun from the longest to the shortest day on Winter Solstice. The day dawns in grayness, a quarter inch of rain has fallen so far today and its cool wetness announces the heat of summer has passed and we can longer expect to see growth in the green and colorful things around us but, rather, a drying preparation for winter. Green will give way to brown and tan but also to the spectacular shades of yellow, orange and red. Walking in the aspens and tamaracks in the hills and down the maple tree-lined streets by the university will give us a palette of colors so intense we are always surprised by what we see. 

Psalm 104 is an extended, beautiful psalm of praise of God for the spectacular world we have been gifted. Verse 19 is just one of 35 but it offers some insight to note on this time of the threshold of summer to winter. Today, like most of the world, we measure our days based on the calendar of the sun. Seasons are marked by the passage of the earth around the sun. Summer solstice and winter solstice are the longest and shortest days and the Equinox mark the halfway points of the movement toward the longest and shortest days.  We celebrate the threshold of an old year from to a new one on a day just after the winter solstice when it is possible to conclusively understand the journey from short to long has begun. 

Jews, however, operate under a different calendar that recognizes both the sun and moon as being integrated into measuring and marking the passage of days from one month to the next, from season to season and from the end of one year to the beginning of the next. The calendar of months, however, is based upon a lunar cycle rather than a solunar 12 months in each year model. Today is September 22, 2022 with the year being arbitrarily assigned to what was thought to be the year of the birth of Jesus. Ironically, they got the calculation wrong so the year should be 2027 or 2028. 

Today, however, the Hebrew calendar is 26 Elul 5782 with a starting point in the year 3761 BC which is the commonly accepted date of the creation of the earth. The Jewish new year, Rosh HaShanah falls on the day of the first new moon following the fall equinox. This year that day begins at sunset on 9/25. 

As I review what I have written so far, there does not seem to be much in the way of scriptural reflection. I went down a factual history rabbit hole. That is going to happen to me from time to time because I can be totally amazed at how different peoples observe the passage of time. The point of all this, however, is to embrace the awareness is we live in a created world that operates according to a schedule God established that relies upon the sun which rules the day and the moon which shines the night. The coming and going of the days are marked by the coming and going of the moon and we can take awe in that measurement even if we operate under a different way of measuring in which we watch the moon but measure by the light day. 

Today, the harvest full moon is behind us and on 9/25 we will have a new moon. November 23 will be the date of the first new moon after the mid-way point between fall and winter which will be the formal date of Samhain, the Celtic New Year. For today, however, all of these facts are interesting but what is important beyond all discussion is being mindful of who created the earth out of chaos and set the stars and moon in motion. What is more important of all is the understanding that I was also created from chaos. We all were and our creation is continuing just as the calendar we use to mark our days continues. Wonder is what feels my soul this morning. No wonder as the word for pondering but wonder as in awe. Wonder-filled, awe-filled is the creation that we are in and that is for us.