Theologian's Almanac for Week of March 15, 2020
Welcome to SALT’s “Theologian’s Almanac,” a weekly selection of important birthdays, holidays, and other upcoming milestones worth marking - specially created for a) writing sermons and prayers, b) creating content for social media channels, and c) enriching your devotional life.
For the week of Sunday, March 15:
March 15 is the day in 1965 that President Lyndon B. Johnson gave a speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress, calling for legislation to safeguard voting rights for all Americans, and in particular for Americans of color. Just eight days earlier was “Bloody Sunday,” the day 600 people set out on a march from Selma, Alabama, demonstrating for voting rights and protesting the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a civil rights activist and Baptist deacon. After six blocks, as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the marchers were met by local and state law enforcement, who brutally attacked them clubs and tear gas. ABC News televised the violence, and during the ensuing week, the public was becoming increasingly concerned. The night before, Johnson decided to make a public address to Congress, giving his head speechwriter, Richard Goodwin, less than a day to write it. The speech should use “every ounce of moral persuasion the presidency held,” he said – and Goodwin structured the speech around the civil rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome.” 70 million Americans watched on television. Referring to the marchers, Johnson declared, “Their cause must be our cause, too, because it’s not just Negroes, but really, it’s all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”
March 15 is also the ides of March. The word “ides” refers to the full moon in the Roman lunar calendar, occurring on the 15th of the month in March, May, July, and October, and on the 13th in the other months. When the Western world’s monthly calendar diverged from the lunar calendar, and the full moon consequently wasn’t always on the 13th or the 15th, the term “ides” faded from use.
March 17 is St. Patrick’s Day, celebrating Ireland’s patron saint. Here’s SALT’s “Brief Theology of St. Patrick’s Day.”
March 17 is also the day in 1901 that Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings were first shown at a major exhibition - eleven years after the artist’s death (he sold only one of his paintings during his lifetime). The exhibition was a sensation, and helped open the way for galleries to show other unconventional artists, such as Henri Matisse, in the years that followed.
Before devoting himself full-time to painting, Van Gogh’s dream was to become a pastor and preacher - and he conceived his painting as another form of proclaiming the Gospel. He said, “To me, to believe in God is to feel that there is a God, not dead or stuffed, but alive, urging us toward love with irresistible force.”
March 19 is the beginning of the first day of spring this year, when the vernal equinox occurs in the Northern Hemisphere. As the Earth orbits the sun, sometimes its axis is tilted toward the sun (summer in the Northern Hemisphere) and sometimes away from it (winter). Today, it’s neither; the North Pole and the South Pole are equidistant from the sun. The term “equinox” is from the Latin for “equal” (aequus) and “night” (nox), the idea being that today, night and day are as close to equal in length as they will be all year.
Of spring, Emily Dickinson wrote:
A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown -
Who ponders this tremendous scene -
This whole Experiment of Green -
As if it were his own!
March 20 is the day in 1852 that Harriet Beecher Stowe published her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The daughter of Lyman Beecher, a well known Congregationalist minister, Stowe’s ministry would take a literary form: Uncle Tom’s Cabin became a national sensation. One of the bestselling novels of all time, the novel was for many an eye-opening, unsparing, tragic depiction of the evils of slavery, and a vision that helped galvanize the abolitionist movement.
March 20 is also the birthday of legendary children’s television host Fred Rogers, born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, in 1928. After graduating with a divinity degree from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1962, he was ordained by the Presbyterian Church. The following year, he appeared on camera for the first time on the show that would evolve into Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood - which debuted nationally in 1968. It went on to become PBS’ longest-running show ever, taping its final show in 2000.
Here’s a lovely gift from Rogers: “One Silent Minute.”
March 21 is the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach, born in Eisenach, Germany, in 1685. He worked as the city of Leipzig’s director of church music for most of his life, composing a cantata every single week (and later, every month). In the midst of these demands, he composed a wide range of classic theological work, including The Passion According to St. John (1723), The Passion According to St. Matthew (1729), and the Mass in B minor (1733). After his death, later composers realized that even the exercises he wrote for his music students were themselves masterpieces.
He said, “I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.”