I am back to the problem of days. The calendar tells me it is Thursday, but it feels like Friday to me. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday also felt like Friday. It is a week of Fridays.
How odd that we have "feelings" about days. There is a Monday feeling (usually not considered a positive feeling). There is even a Tuesday feeling and a Wednesday feeling. There is certainly a Sunday feeling. How odd this all seems.
We have to remember that days are just an invention of mankind. The day I call Thursday could just as well be called Kumquat or Dirt Shoe. There is no permanence to the days. We even changed our calendar a couple of hundred years ago, keeping the same names but changing what day it was. So it isn't "really Thursday" in any sense.
But this is how human beings are. We tend to attach meaning to things that have no real meaning at all. Once something is part of our life, we think it is important. We eventually come to embrace whatever it is and defend it or, in the alternative, we hate and despise it and fight against it. But "it" is just something we made up.
We see this with the flags of countries. A country makes a flag from a design of cloth. The cloth is not special and could have been used for shirts or socks, but is used in a flag. Somehow, over time, the flag design becomes special to us and we "defend the flag" in some odd sense. In the United States, we now have people who will fight each other over a flag. Not in a war defending their country, mind you, but in a parking lot. Why? Because the flag gives us a feeling.
In this sense, people who burn flags for political theater and people who object to people burning flags share the same problem. They think the flag has inherent value. They have decided that the symbol actually "is" the actual thing it symbolizes. There are men in my area who would physically fight anyone who tried to burn the flag, but who will not obey the speed laws of the country the flag represents. How did we get so strange? We honor the symbol more than the reality.
The same thing is true in our churches. We have decided to "observe Christmas" on December 25, for no really good reason, and now it is a big deal. We are angry if anyone does not want to "observe Christmas" on December 25 and we claim there is a "war on Christmas," but that is like a war on the flag. Christmas is not real. It is just something we invented (well, not us, but people a long time ago). If no one ever celebrated it again, God would remain God. God never said to celebrate it anyway.
So, it is always Friday to me this week. Next week, it may always be Tuesday. You just never know. When I tell someone I feel like it is Friday, they don't laugh at me. They tell me what day it feels like to them and we laugh together.
All told, I think I prefer reality to symbols. I love my wife more than my wedding ring. I love my country more than I love any flag I see. I love Christ much more than any celebration of Christmas or Easter or any other day someone made up. I am not upset when someone doesn't celebrate Christmas or tell me "Merry Christmas."
But I wish I could get rid of the every day as Friday feeling. That's just weird.
How odd that we have "feelings" about days. There is a Monday feeling (usually not considered a positive feeling). There is even a Tuesday feeling and a Wednesday feeling. There is certainly a Sunday feeling. How odd this all seems.
We have to remember that days are just an invention of mankind. The day I call Thursday could just as well be called Kumquat or Dirt Shoe. There is no permanence to the days. We even changed our calendar a couple of hundred years ago, keeping the same names but changing what day it was. So it isn't "really Thursday" in any sense.
But this is how human beings are. We tend to attach meaning to things that have no real meaning at all. Once something is part of our life, we think it is important. We eventually come to embrace whatever it is and defend it or, in the alternative, we hate and despise it and fight against it. But "it" is just something we made up.
We see this with the flags of countries. A country makes a flag from a design of cloth. The cloth is not special and could have been used for shirts or socks, but is used in a flag. Somehow, over time, the flag design becomes special to us and we "defend the flag" in some odd sense. In the United States, we now have people who will fight each other over a flag. Not in a war defending their country, mind you, but in a parking lot. Why? Because the flag gives us a feeling.
In this sense, people who burn flags for political theater and people who object to people burning flags share the same problem. They think the flag has inherent value. They have decided that the symbol actually "is" the actual thing it symbolizes. There are men in my area who would physically fight anyone who tried to burn the flag, but who will not obey the speed laws of the country the flag represents. How did we get so strange? We honor the symbol more than the reality.
The same thing is true in our churches. We have decided to "observe Christmas" on December 25, for no really good reason, and now it is a big deal. We are angry if anyone does not want to "observe Christmas" on December 25 and we claim there is a "war on Christmas," but that is like a war on the flag. Christmas is not real. It is just something we invented (well, not us, but people a long time ago). If no one ever celebrated it again, God would remain God. God never said to celebrate it anyway.
So, it is always Friday to me this week. Next week, it may always be Tuesday. You just never know. When I tell someone I feel like it is Friday, they don't laugh at me. They tell me what day it feels like to them and we laugh together.
All told, I think I prefer reality to symbols. I love my wife more than my wedding ring. I love my country more than I love any flag I see. I love Christ much more than any celebration of Christmas or Easter or any other day someone made up. I am not upset when someone doesn't celebrate Christmas or tell me "Merry Christmas."
But I wish I could get rid of the every day as Friday feeling. That's just weird.
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