Theologian's Almanac for Week of February 5, 2023
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, February 5:
February 6 is the feast day of Dorothy, a fourth-century martyr for her faith. The story goes that, on her way to her execution, as she passed by the jeering crowds, a lawyer named Theophilus sarcastically asked her to “send me some fruits and flowers from paradise when you get there!” The crowds laughed, Theophilus went home satisfied with himself — and the next day, it is said, he received a basket of three apples and three roses.
February 7 is the birthday of Charles Dickens, born in Portsmouth, England, in 1812. After a happy early childhood, his father’s debts pulled the Dickens family into poverty, and at the age of 12, Charles was sent to work in a factory pasting labels onto shoe polish containers, while his parents and younger siblings languished in debtors’ prison. Through some of his most well-known novels, Oliver Twist (1837-38), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39), and A Christmas Carol (1843), Dickens called attention to poverty in England. He went on to use his wealth and influence to advocate for investments in philanthropy, prison reform, and public education. God bless us, every one!
February 9 is the birthday of American writer Alice Walker, born in Eatonton, Georgia, in 1944. The daughter of sharecroppers, she was the youngest of eight children. Langston Hughes was an early advocate for her writing. Her breakout novel was The Color Purple (1982), which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Here’s a classic passage from that masterpiece, a meditation on God, love, and that beautiful color.
February 11 is the day in 1990 that Nelson Mandela was released from prison just outside Cape Town, South Africa, after 27 years of incarceration for advocating violent resistance against the brutal, violent methods of the apartheid regime. President P.W. Botha had offered him release in 1988, so long as Mandela would renounce violent resistance. Mandela refused, directing his daughter, Zinzi, to read a speech in which he declared, “Let Botha...renounce violence. Let him say that he will dismantle apartheid!”
Two years later, a new president, F.W. de Klerk, met with Mandela to tell him he would be released the following day. When that day came, under a bright blue sky, Mandela walked out of the prison gates hand-in-hand with his wife, Winnie, his other hand raised in a clenched fist of victory. Apartheid came to an end four years later, and Mandela was elected president. As he put it, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
Speaking to a Christian gathering in 1994, Mandela spoke of “the Good News borne by our risen Messiah who chose not one race, who chose not one country, who chose not one language, who chose not one tribe, who chose all of humankind!”
February 11 is also the feast day of Caedmon, the earliest poet who wrote in English whose name we know (though only one of his poems survives: “Caedmon’s Hymn”). His story goes like this: Caedmon was a seventh-century Northumbrian cowherd who took care of the local monastery’s cattle, and he disliked singing (cowherds would often sing to pass the time, keep the cattle close, and keep predators away). But one night, in a dream, an angel inspired him to sing about creation. When he awoke, he composed his first song, and never looked back. Convinced he was divinely called, the monastery took him in as a monk, and he wrote lyrics for songs on Genesis, Exodus, the New Testament, and more, always honoring God the Creator. So: when it comes to the English language, the earliest poet we know of was a composer praising creation!