Faith Works 6-20-2025
Jeff Gill
Longest days, shortest nights, time in balance
___
"To stand still" is the literal meaning of solstice, with "sol" added to the standing stillness, as the sun's apparent movement on the horizon stops.
Each morning for some time now, the sun has appeared from our perspective to rise further and further north. It arcs higher and higher in the sky, and the days are getting longer in ways you don't need to check your phone to verify.
Daylight is longer (and hotter) while nights are shorter (and often warmer themselves). This has been happening since March and the equinox, or equalness of night and day, the Sun rising due east. Now the light starts far to the northeast.
During the period around a solstice, the rise point is stable. Steady. But you know what that means. No one will thank me for pointing out that in a day or two further on, the Sun's appearances will start sliding south, to the east at the autumnal equinox in September, heading for the other solstice, winter's own, in late December.
Of course that's all far away. Half the year. For now, we have long days well into July and verging into August, but you will start to notice the change in the mornings. The angle of the sunlight on the bedroom floor, where your morning chair sits as dawn breaks . . . and daytime will slowly, steadily reduce.
For now we can hold onto what we have. The longest days of the year this weekend give us lengthy mornings, and evenings that go on as if we were in Alaska or something, the light only grudgingly retiring into night.
Our church calendars are focused on the darker half of the year, with Advent taking us into the darkest stretch of time, and Lent helping open up daylight from early spring towards Easter. Those seasons and celebrations from Christmas to Pentecost allow us to frame and manage the loss of light and warmth through our devotions and disciplines. The rest of the year is labeled "Common" or "Ordinary Time," but I'll dispute it enough to say there's nothing ordinary about the weeks we're privileged to be living through.
It is peculiar that we treat trees fully in leaf as normal, when they spend a majority of their time otherwise. My father taught me to know trees by their bark and shape, as well as leaves "because most of the time they don't have them!" An ordinary day might be spent running through sprinklers and sitting in lawn chairs listening to a concert on the green, but how ordinary is that sort of experience?
We all know that when things get stable and steady, like they are around a solstice, the next thing to come is change. And for most of us, we don't like it. This can deteriorate quickly into always mistrusting security or comfort or any simple pleasure, because the experience of it can become a signal to us it soon will end. That way lies discontent.
My mother, who just celebrated a major birthday, is content. She has lost most of her memory, and yes, that's a sorrow, one we children of hers feel often. What can't be denied, though, is that a woman who has spent many of her ninety years worried about what will happen next, not without reason given her memories of the past, is now happy. Sincerely, seriously happy. In ways we really didn't see coming.
Since she no longer remembers most of what has worried her in the past, she's delighted by almost any enjoyment that comes her way. The party, the cake, her kids and friends of theirs: she delighted in pretty much all of it. Not despite, but because she can't remember much. It's enough to make you think about forgetting some stuff.
We are in the time of solstice. If you recall, that means days will soon get shorter, and that can worry us. Or you could just forget it, and give thanks for the long warm sunny days we are getting right now.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he has a list of things he really should just forget about. Tell him how forgetting helps you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
Longest days, shortest nights, time in balance
___
"To stand still" is the literal meaning of solstice, with "sol" added to the standing stillness, as the sun's apparent movement on the horizon stops.
Each morning for some time now, the sun has appeared from our perspective to rise further and further north. It arcs higher and higher in the sky, and the days are getting longer in ways you don't need to check your phone to verify.
Daylight is longer (and hotter) while nights are shorter (and often warmer themselves). This has been happening since March and the equinox, or equalness of night and day, the Sun rising due east. Now the light starts far to the northeast.
During the period around a solstice, the rise point is stable. Steady. But you know what that means. No one will thank me for pointing out that in a day or two further on, the Sun's appearances will start sliding south, to the east at the autumnal equinox in September, heading for the other solstice, winter's own, in late December.
Of course that's all far away. Half the year. For now, we have long days well into July and verging into August, but you will start to notice the change in the mornings. The angle of the sunlight on the bedroom floor, where your morning chair sits as dawn breaks . . . and daytime will slowly, steadily reduce.
For now we can hold onto what we have. The longest days of the year this weekend give us lengthy mornings, and evenings that go on as if we were in Alaska or something, the light only grudgingly retiring into night.
Our church calendars are focused on the darker half of the year, with Advent taking us into the darkest stretch of time, and Lent helping open up daylight from early spring towards Easter. Those seasons and celebrations from Christmas to Pentecost allow us to frame and manage the loss of light and warmth through our devotions and disciplines. The rest of the year is labeled "Common" or "Ordinary Time," but I'll dispute it enough to say there's nothing ordinary about the weeks we're privileged to be living through.
It is peculiar that we treat trees fully in leaf as normal, when they spend a majority of their time otherwise. My father taught me to know trees by their bark and shape, as well as leaves "because most of the time they don't have them!" An ordinary day might be spent running through sprinklers and sitting in lawn chairs listening to a concert on the green, but how ordinary is that sort of experience?
We all know that when things get stable and steady, like they are around a solstice, the next thing to come is change. And for most of us, we don't like it. This can deteriorate quickly into always mistrusting security or comfort or any simple pleasure, because the experience of it can become a signal to us it soon will end. That way lies discontent.
My mother, who just celebrated a major birthday, is content. She has lost most of her memory, and yes, that's a sorrow, one we children of hers feel often. What can't be denied, though, is that a woman who has spent many of her ninety years worried about what will happen next, not without reason given her memories of the past, is now happy. Sincerely, seriously happy. In ways we really didn't see coming.
Since she no longer remembers most of what has worried her in the past, she's delighted by almost any enjoyment that comes her way. The party, the cake, her kids and friends of theirs: she delighted in pretty much all of it. Not despite, but because she can't remember much. It's enough to make you think about forgetting some stuff.
We are in the time of solstice. If you recall, that means days will soon get shorter, and that can worry us. Or you could just forget it, and give thanks for the long warm sunny days we are getting right now.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he has a list of things he really should just forget about. Tell him how forgetting helps you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
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