February 2012
Black History Month and Lenten
Transformation
The Season of Lent begins on February 22 this year. The month of February is widely recognized as Black History Month. What correspondence might these two observances have?
Origins
In the United States of America black history has been celebrated annually since 1926, first as "Negro History Week" and later as "Black History Month."
It was started by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, born to two former slaves, who as a child worked in the coal mines, only able to enrol in high school at age twenty. Graduating within just two years he later went on to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. During his studies he was deeply troubled that the history books largely ignored the presence and contribution of blacks to the human family
Woodson decided to embark on writing the history of Blacks into the nation's history. He established the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now called the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History) in 1915, and a year later founded the widely respected Journal of Negro History. In 1926, he launched Negro History Week as an initiative to bring national attention to the contributions of black people throughout American history. Woodson chose the second week of February for Negro History Week because it marks the birthdays of two men who greatly influenced the black American population, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
Here in Canada, Black History Month (BHM) was established by an Act of Parliament in December of 1995, and has been celebrated formally since 1996. Like Asian Heritage Month in May, Aboriginal emphasis in the month of June and other observances of various cultural and ethnic communities in Canada, BHM attempts to provide all Canadians with an opportunity to reflect upon the reality of Canada’s diverse people– in this case those of African heritage – and celebrate their past and present contributions to the well-being and growth of Canada.
The Invitation
Black History Month is an invitation to become informed about the heritage of Black peoples and the significant contributions they have made in the world. This comes through participation in the various cultural, artistic, religious, musical and academic events offered throughout the month (and at other times of the year). For a comprehensive list of events and activities around the region, check out www.blackhistoryottawa.org.
On a deeper level, it is also an invitation to be transformed in ways that support the peaceful, celebrative and respectful coming together of peoples from varying ethno-cultural heritages.
The Season of Lent
The Lenten season is also an invitation to be transformed. Although the origins of the season of Lent do not go back to the early Church, over the first three to four centuries of the Church’s history it became fixed as a time of penance and deep spiritual reflection that preceded the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The forty days preceding Easter (excluding Sundays) is set aside, partly in commemoration of Jesus’ forty days of temptation in the wilderness before his public ministry. You might have observed that the period of forty days is very significant in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. (Although it has mythic and religious significance, periods of 40 days are used in the measurement of the solar year).
Lent invites us like Jesus to wrestle with who we truly are; to reflect on our spiritual relationship with the One to whom we ultimately belong; and to seek the Spirit’s power and guidance to be continually transformed into a faithful missioner in God’s loving work in the world.
A Lenten Meditation on a Saying of Jesus (~ transformation ~)
“No one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says
the old is good.” Luke 5:39
I don’t know very much about wine, but I know people who do. It can be fascinating to listen to folks – “in the know” – talk wine. Once at a function, I overheard a conversation that began as an exchange of mutual admiration for vintage wines with each person submitting reasons for their favourites. Soil, grapes, aging processes, storage…you know how it goes. Soon however, the conversation turned into a trivia contest.
Did you know that 20 million acres worldwide are planted to grapes? Or that it costs about 95 cents per bottle to age wine in vintage French oak barrels, but about $2.60 to do so in new French barrels? Who knew?
When Jesus was talking about old wine and new wine and the old being preferred, he was not really talking about wine. Sure every one of his hearers, as well as those of Luke’s community, would know that putting new wine into already stretched and brittle old wineskins would jeopardize both. And that, customarily, aged wine was preferred to fresh wine not yet fully fermented.
The question is: did they and do we realize that Jesus is really talking about a certain kind of transformation; a rigorous and joyful dance of giving up some things in order to embrace something new? Here he invites the kind of change that radically challenges some of our religious assumptions, our attitudes, our customs, our theologies, our politics, our spiritual practices, our prejudices and even our beloved notions of what constitutes true justice and right relations.
This sweeping comprehensiveness of proposed transformation is necessary if we are to appreciate the kind of challenge the new way (new wine) of Jesus posed to first century hearers who privileged the old way (old wine), and if we are to grow in the joy and summons of our common discipleship.
Fundamental transformation is hazardous for all, those who seek it and those reluctantly precipitated into it, those who just want a little of it and those who don’t feel they have any need of it. Yet the prized and vintage good news of God is spilled ‘wastefully’ whenever and wherever the new ways of Jesus are drunk.
Blessings and Peace
anthony