February 2009

From the Pastor

     Are you familiar with Punxsutawney Phil?  Every February 2, people gather at Gobbler's Knob, a wooded knoll just outside of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to watch a groundhog that is said to be able to predict whether there’s going to be six more weeks of winter, or whether spring is just around the corner. 

     Phil emerges from his electrically heated burrow, looks for his shadow and utters his prediction to a Groundhog Club representative in "groundhogese." The representative then translates the prediction for the general public.  According to the website www.gojp.com/groundhog,  approximately 90% of the time, Phil sees his shadow, meaning that we’ll have six more weeks of winter.

      As I thought about Phil, it occurred to me that our lives are a lot like him.  We all know that each of us have a “shadow” side, a side of ourselves that we don’t even like to acknowledge.  Often when we do become aware of it, when we do “see our shadow” if you will, we tend to do just what Phil does, try to hide back in our “burrow.”  And, like Groundhog Day, when we try to hide from our “shadow,” the result is a longer “winter,” a season of cold, gray, and darkness.

     The only way out of this spiritual seasonal affective disorder (to use another analogy) is to “step out” into the sun: that is, to be honest with ourselves as to who we truly are. 

     Only by acknowledging who we truly are can we begin to change those parts of ourselves that need to be changed.  Twelve step programs talk about the need for total, brutal honesty as one of the first steps toward wholeness.

     Ash Wednesday is February 25, the beginning of Lent, that period of time prior to Easter when traditionally people gave something up.  The only way to decide what we might need to “give up” is to honestly determine those areas where we are failing to live up to our full God given potential.  One cannot turn around (the meaning of repent) unless one first understands what one is turning from.

     May this season be a time for all of us to walk in the light, and not hide from our shadows. 

Pastor Tony