I'm sorry to admit it, but February has never been my favourite month of the year. Christmas is over, as is the optimism generated by the new year, but there are few signs of spring. I like to think that others are of my opinion, since in the normal way of things we are only allotted twenty-eight days of February to endure, but this year - leap year - we have to grin and bear February for another whole day. Grrrr!
Of course, all these calendar dates aren't God-given, but arbitrary human decisions, trying to tidy up a rather untidy universe. There aren't precisely 24 hours in a day, or 365 days in a year; every so often reality catches up with us and we have to insert another day into February. And we're getting off lightly, just having one extra day every four years. In the sixteenth century, Pope Gregory, founder of our Gregorian calendar, dealt with the way Easter was starting to slip out of synchronisation with the seasons by changing the way leap years were marked and - more obviously - by jumping forward ten days from the previous, Julian calendar - days which were lost, never to return!
Some people in his time weren't too impressed with Gregory's fiddling about with the calendar, but he had a point: imagine celebrating Christmas in high summer, or Easter in autumn! Of course, people in other parts of the world do that now - Australians are famous for their Christmas barbecues on the beach. And because the events in Jesus' life we mark took place in Palestine, the original climate bears little resemblance to our own (sorry, no bleak midwinter...). Yet in this part of the world the connection between Easter and spring still has power to help us in our Christian lives. However, though Easter has been tethered by Gregory's calendar to spring, it still wanders around the first quarter of the year, and this year it's very early indeed, so early that Lent begins this month. And that in itself is a problem for us. We've hardly finished celebrating Jesus' birth before we're being asked to wander in the desert with him as he begins his mission around the age of thirty. And then it seems no time at all until we're remembering his death and resurrection!
Some Christians believe this whole business of the Christian year isn't necessary. It's arbitrary, they argue - we know, for example, that Jesus wasn't born on 25th December. And isn't it more important, they ask, to think about welcoming Jesus into our lives, fighting temptation with him, sharing in his suffering and rejoicing in the new life he offers us, every day of the year, not just at special times?
And they have a point. If we get so hung up on special times and seasons that the calendar becomes more important to us than what it is we're commemorating, we've certainly gone wrong. Yet just as we appreciate family and friends all the time, but still celebrate birthdays once a year, giving extra attention on that date, I reckon the regularity of Christmas and Easter helps us Christians make links between the whole of our lives and the whole of Jesus' story, rather than sticking with the bits we like and forgetting the rest. So as we prepare to enter Lent, let us remember in our prayers all who are struggling with the direction of their lives. And let us take advantage of the Lenten challenges this February offers, whether it's study, prayer or the will to endure bad weather cheerfully!