Feasts

As I've mentioned before, I don't celebrate rituals to praise God, but to connect with people and history, and I just read a nice parable about this.  I will paraphase to keep it short:

A king was travelling through the desert, when his son became ill with thirst.  The king ordered that a well be sunk into ground, so that his child might drink. His soldiers argued it would be faster for them to ride to the nearest town and bring back water, but the king insisted on digging the well.  When the child recovered, he, too, was puzzled and asked his father, "Why did you trouble your men to dig a well when we had the means to obtain water more quickly and easily?"  And the king replied, "In many years, you may again be travelling this way, perhaps alone and without privilege, but the well will still be here to quench your thirst."

And the son replied, "But father, in many years the sands of time will have refilled the well, stopping the water and erasing its very memory."  But the king said, "We will mark the site of this well on our maps, and preserve our maps, so whenever you travel this route, you will be able to reopen the well and obtain the water that will sustain you on your journey."

So a festival is an appointment with the past, an encounter with an event that occurred in our history, but becomes part of our present and our future.  It comes complete with instructions on how to re-open the well and access its waters.  These were not "one time" gifts because these were not "one time" needs, and festivals serve not only as perpetual reminders, but as perpetual sources.

So it really doesn't matter if you celebrate the Jewish festivals, the Christian festivals, the American holidays, or just make up your own.  The important thing is to mark and remember, to appreciate what has gone before and what is yet to come, to know that you are part of something bigger, and while you can always choose to cut yourself off, you can also always choose to reconnect.  As I get older, I have really started to appreciate not only the circle of life, but how important those circles are in our life.