Theologian's Almanac for Week of March 17, 2024
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 17:
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 a few 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 (check out SALT’s Lenten devotionals on Matisse here and here).
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.”
Want to journey through the remainder of the Lenten season with Vincent as your guide? Here SALT’s “Vincent van Gogh and the Beauty of Lent.” And for all you podcast fans, here’s Part One of “The Gospel According to Vincent,” the miniseries from SALT’s Strange New World podcast (and here’s Part Two, one of our favorite SNW episodes ever!).
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 travels in its annual orbit, sometimes its tilted axis leans in the direction of the Sun, creating summer in the hemisphere tilted toward it, and winter in the hemisphere tilted away. Today, it’s neither: the North Pole and the South Pole are equidistant from the sun, since the Earth’s axis leans not toward/away from the Sun, but “alongside” it, so to speak. 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 one of the bestselling novels of all time. For many, the novel served as 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’s longest-running show ever, taping its final episode 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, for years composing a cantata every single week (and later, every month). In the midst of these demands, he composed a wide range of classical 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.”
March 22 is the birthday of former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, born in New York City in 1941. Of poets, he once remarked, “While the novelist is banging on his typewriter, the poet is watching a fly in the window pane.” He’s one of the most accessible, witty, and popular poets in America today. Here’s a taste of his theological imagination: “Questions About Angels.”
March 23 is the beginning of Purim, the Jewish holiday celebrating the saving of the Jewish people from the plot to exterminate them attempted by the Achaemenid Persian Empire official, Haman, as narrated in the Book of Esther. The story is full of surprises and reversals — and its celebration is marked by festive feasting, philanthropy, gifts, masks, and public recitation of the Esther story.
March 23 is also the thirteenth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama. It’s one of the most far-reaching pieces of U.S. federal legislation related to health care since 1965, when Medicare was passed. The goal behind the effort was to move toward universal health insurance coverage, and the ACA extended coverage to nearly 32 million Americans.
March 23 is also the day in 1942 when the U.S. government began forcibly relocating Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast to internment camps. Approximately 120,000 people were detained in this way, even as some Japanese-American men were drafted into the war effort. The camps remained operational for three years. In 1981, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians concluded that the internment was a “grave injustice” resulting from “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” President Reagan offered survivors an apology and $20,000 each in 1988.
March 23 is also the day in 1743 that George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” had its London debut performance. During the now-famous Hallelujah Chorus, King George II rose to his feet, the story goes, so moved was he by the cascading voices — and the audience, seeing the king stand, scrambled to join him. Thus was born the tradition of standing during the chorus, widely practiced to this day. Though the oratorio is now commonly performed at Christmastime, Handel wrote it for this time of year: the Lenten/Easter season.