The Stories Our Calendars Tell

Each summer for the past decade, my wife and I rent a condo in Parksville for a week. Our children and grandchildren camp nearby in the provincial parks at Rathtrevor Beach or Little Qualicum Falls. Then, depending on the day, the 18 of us gather for the evening meal, often as elaborate as hot dogs, salad, potato chips, and freshly harvested corn on the cob.

The Parksville gathering marks a key point in our year. Cousins play and share stories. Siblings catch up. We welcome new members, celebrate events, mourn losses. Memories are resuscitated and revamped. Wisdom and folly are shared. We recast and remember our story. We are a family, and the yearly Parksville gathering provides sustenance and reminds us who we are.

We used to have other rituals. Supper together was a command performance at least three days a week. We still aim for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and birthdays. Anniversaries provide occasion to celebrate covenants of coupling. Birthdays reaffirm gratitude, to celebrate and nurture life in all its particularity.

Some changes to the calendar of ritual and feast are predictable; others creep up. Apparently the sons-in-law also come from families with their own traditions. Who knew?

I remember when Sunday morning church service was at 11 am, especially in rural congregations, to allow time for farm chores and travel. Thanksgiving was a major celebration, felt in the back and the bones. I still delight in the line of Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in Downton Abbey: “What is a weekend?” Managing the estate, arranging and maintaining proper social arrangements, and resolving family tensions and household tasks formed a seamless whole.

My father stepped away from his rural upbringing when shift work at the smelter set a new schedule, complete with a colour-coded handout outlining the shifts. Clock in, clock out. Punctuality was a major lesson at school, perfect attendance the goal. We were ready for the workplace. Now, Parksville has to be managed around the work schedules of the older grandchildren and everyone’s vacation time.

How we work time, or how time works us, tells a story that confers identity. The question is not just what we do with time, but what time says about who we are.

Medieval time was organized around multiple holy days and the commemoration of various saints. The narrative around the accompanying feasts declared that all of history, from Creation through Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and the promised renewal of all things, was ultimately God’s story.

Now, the trend is for each of us to assemble our own calendars. We mark time differently. Circle opening day or the playoff schedule of the Blue Jays or Canucks. A vestige of the communal element remains. Watch parties and the shared ecstasy of 40,000 close friends celebrating a win. The coloured vestments of those in the crowded stands during the World Cup reflected adherence to different stories. Television commentators recounted the heroes’ exploits. $2 hot dog Tuesdays, in some parks, make the sacramental food of the ballpark available to one and all.

I appreciate today’s greater freedom to choose communities and practices, and the welcoming of people once marginalized by religious or social structures. But there has been loss: consumer events, sports seasons, digital communities, and wellness practices do not seem to mark the threshold times of life with the same force.

When officiating, I noticed the lack of depth that often surrounds celebrations of life transitions, like weddings and even funerals. These moments call for attention because they are significant.

That is the point: How we mark time tells us what matters most about who we are.

A Blessing

May the God who dwells beyond all time
meet you in the hours you have been given.

May your calendar become more than a schedule,
and your days more than appointments kept.

May you recognize the holy interruptions,
the ordinary meals that become feasts,
the conversations that become memory,
and the thresholds that quietly change your life.

May you never be so hurried
that you miss what deserves your full attention,
nor so distracted
that you forget who shares your table.

Amen.

*Chat GPT assisted with research and the development of the blessing