Solstice 2015
22/12/15 05:24
Solstice, from the Latin words “sun” and “stop,” refers to the sun appearing to stop moving south in the sky and begin moving north. The ancient Romans didn’t realize that it is motion of the earth relative to the sun that causes the phenomena. They believed that it was the sun that was in motion around the earth. What causes the solstice is that the axis of the earth is tilted, so in the winter the northern half of the earth is farther from the sun and in the summer, the northern half of the earth is nearer to the sun. The winter solstice for those of us who live in the northern hemisphere is the summer solstice for those who live in the southern hemisphere. The solstice is a scientific phenomenon that is observed as a time of celebration in many places around the world. Bonfires and parties are common elements in solstice observances and celebrations.
It is true that the days will start getting longer for those of us who live up north, though it takes a few days before the change is significant for us to recognize it. Longer days, however, don’t mean instantly warmer temperatures because the oceans continue to cool well into the new year. Our coldest temperatures can occur towards the end of January or even into February.
The solstice occurs at the same moment everywhere on the earth. I can occur as early as December 20 or as late as December 23 because of variations in the movement of the earth, but the precise moment of the winter solstice was 9:48 p.m. in our time zone last night. That means the solstice was 10:48 pm in the Eastern Time Zone of the US and that it occurred on December 21st in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
Police pay attention to phenomena like the solstice because there are changes in people’s behavior. As the solstice approached last night the police in our town were busy. I was out providing support to a brand-new widow who had just lost her husband to suicide. In shock and horror, she needed support to make the simplest of decisions and to form a plan for the next few hours of her life. She had relatives to notify. She needed to arrange a place for to stay for the night. (After the investigation, clean up of her home lasted well past midnight. It was not the right place for her to spend the night even though her sleep was certainly already disrupted.)
Other officers were simultaneously responding to an armed robbery on the east side of town.
The solstice isn’t the only time crime occurs. The casino that was robbed has been robbed three times since August. Police have responded to a total of ten casino robberies in the past four months. The suicide was the 26th in our community this year. You can do the math. That averages one every two weeks. Only they aren’t evenly distributed, so if you follow the trend of the last few weeks, it is completely possible that we will see more before the end of the year. Last night’s event was less than four days from the previously most recent death by suicide in our town.
Of course robbery is not the same as suicide. And neither is caused by the rotation of the earth, the tilt of its axis or the hours of daylight. It is simply that all were occurring at about the same time last night. It is true, however, that the solstice will bring back stark and painful memories to the surviving widow of last night’s suicide and to the clerk who was the victim of the robbery. You don’t forget those kinds of events easily. They change your life.
In a sense both the robbery and the suicide were acts of desperation. It is easy for those of us who look upon such behavior from the outside to see that those involved had many other options and might have made different decisions. But our perspective is different and those involved didn’t recognize the other options when making their choices.
And life doesn’t have a rewind button.
And those left behind will continue to ask the question, “why?” without ever receiving an answer. We don’t know why. We can’t know why. The answer, in the case of death by suicide, dies with the victim.
So I focus my attention on a different question: “What?” For the people I am helping travel through a traumatic time of grief and loss, we decide what will happen next. We make a plan about how to get care for those who are suffering. We explain what is happening with the investigation. We facilitate contacts with the cleaning service. We explain a little of how insurance pays for home repairs. We focus our attention on “what” is going to happen, not “why” thing have happened. And we know that the victims can’t get the “why” question out of their minds.
For people in our traditions of faith, this is a time of the year when we focus our attention on the enduring realities of hope, peace, joy and love. These are not things that deny the presence of loss or pain or ugliness in the world. They do not pretend that desperation does not exist. They reach deeper into the realities of human existence to declare that hope does not die despite the horrors that people have witnessed. Peace is possible despite the violence that is so prevalent. Joy abides in the darkest places of pain and grief. Love is born into a world of hate.
Even though it sometimes doesn’t seem that way, death is not the victor. God’s gift of life triumphs in spite of all of the pain and terror and torture and ugliness of this world.
The ancients believed that the sun was going away as the days became shorter and the nights became longer. They celebrated because they thought that they had to do just the right things to cause the sun to return. We know that the universe works in a different manner. But in the workings of the universe are revealed a deep truth: the light will return. Warmth will come back. This is not the end.
How often we need to be reminded of that truth.
It is true that the days will start getting longer for those of us who live up north, though it takes a few days before the change is significant for us to recognize it. Longer days, however, don’t mean instantly warmer temperatures because the oceans continue to cool well into the new year. Our coldest temperatures can occur towards the end of January or even into February.
The solstice occurs at the same moment everywhere on the earth. I can occur as early as December 20 or as late as December 23 because of variations in the movement of the earth, but the precise moment of the winter solstice was 9:48 p.m. in our time zone last night. That means the solstice was 10:48 pm in the Eastern Time Zone of the US and that it occurred on December 21st in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
Police pay attention to phenomena like the solstice because there are changes in people’s behavior. As the solstice approached last night the police in our town were busy. I was out providing support to a brand-new widow who had just lost her husband to suicide. In shock and horror, she needed support to make the simplest of decisions and to form a plan for the next few hours of her life. She had relatives to notify. She needed to arrange a place for to stay for the night. (After the investigation, clean up of her home lasted well past midnight. It was not the right place for her to spend the night even though her sleep was certainly already disrupted.)
Other officers were simultaneously responding to an armed robbery on the east side of town.
The solstice isn’t the only time crime occurs. The casino that was robbed has been robbed three times since August. Police have responded to a total of ten casino robberies in the past four months. The suicide was the 26th in our community this year. You can do the math. That averages one every two weeks. Only they aren’t evenly distributed, so if you follow the trend of the last few weeks, it is completely possible that we will see more before the end of the year. Last night’s event was less than four days from the previously most recent death by suicide in our town.
Of course robbery is not the same as suicide. And neither is caused by the rotation of the earth, the tilt of its axis or the hours of daylight. It is simply that all were occurring at about the same time last night. It is true, however, that the solstice will bring back stark and painful memories to the surviving widow of last night’s suicide and to the clerk who was the victim of the robbery. You don’t forget those kinds of events easily. They change your life.
In a sense both the robbery and the suicide were acts of desperation. It is easy for those of us who look upon such behavior from the outside to see that those involved had many other options and might have made different decisions. But our perspective is different and those involved didn’t recognize the other options when making their choices.
And life doesn’t have a rewind button.
And those left behind will continue to ask the question, “why?” without ever receiving an answer. We don’t know why. We can’t know why. The answer, in the case of death by suicide, dies with the victim.
So I focus my attention on a different question: “What?” For the people I am helping travel through a traumatic time of grief and loss, we decide what will happen next. We make a plan about how to get care for those who are suffering. We explain what is happening with the investigation. We facilitate contacts with the cleaning service. We explain a little of how insurance pays for home repairs. We focus our attention on “what” is going to happen, not “why” thing have happened. And we know that the victims can’t get the “why” question out of their minds.
For people in our traditions of faith, this is a time of the year when we focus our attention on the enduring realities of hope, peace, joy and love. These are not things that deny the presence of loss or pain or ugliness in the world. They do not pretend that desperation does not exist. They reach deeper into the realities of human existence to declare that hope does not die despite the horrors that people have witnessed. Peace is possible despite the violence that is so prevalent. Joy abides in the darkest places of pain and grief. Love is born into a world of hate.
Even though it sometimes doesn’t seem that way, death is not the victor. God’s gift of life triumphs in spite of all of the pain and terror and torture and ugliness of this world.
The ancients believed that the sun was going away as the days became shorter and the nights became longer. They celebrated because they thought that they had to do just the right things to cause the sun to return. We know that the universe works in a different manner. But in the workings of the universe are revealed a deep truth: the light will return. Warmth will come back. This is not the end.
How often we need to be reminded of that truth.