Theologian's Almanac for Week of September 17, 2023
Welcome to SALT’s “Theologian’s Almanac,” a weekly selection of important birthdays, holidays, and other upcoming milestones worth marking — specially created for a) writing sermons and prayers, b) creating content for social media channels, and c) enriching your devotional life.
For the week of Sunday, September 17:
September 17 is the day in 1849 Harriet Tubman first escaped enslavement in Maryland, along with two of her brothers. In a letter to Ednah Dow Cheney, circa 1859, Tubman wrote: “God’s time [Emancipation] is always near. He set the North Star in the heavens; He gave me the strength in my limbs; He meant I should be free.”
September 17 is also the feast day of Hildegard of Bingen, abbess of Rupertsberg, Germany (1098-1179). A visionary from childhood, she wrote three mystical works, along with many other books — though today she is primarily remembered for her poetic and musical achievements. Her remarkable lyrical collection, Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum (“Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations”) includes seventy-seven songs full of vivid, striking imagery, preserved with musical notation. Have a listen here.
Sept 19 is the birthday of author William Golding, born in 1911 in Cornwall, England. In 1940, he served in World War II in the Royal Navy, and became deeply troubled by what he saw in the war. For example, he faced a gut-wrenching quandary when he learned that a ship under his command would have to cross a minefield in order to arrive in time for the D-Day operations. He couldn’t decide whether to risk the lives of his own crew in the minefield, or the lives of all those participating in D-Day who needed their help. In the end he decided to risk the journey — and only later learned that the minefield was fictional, put on a map to fool the Germans, so his moral dilemma had no basis in reality. He found this experience, and many others like it, profoundly disorienting. “I began to see what people were capable of doing,” he later said. “Anyone who moved through those years without understanding that humanity produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong in the head.” Informed by his wartime experiences, and also by his later work as a schoolteacher, he wrote a novel that became a classic of 20th-century English literature, exploring the shadow side of fallen human nature. Translating the Hebrew name, “Beelzebub,” into its literal English equivalent, he titled his novel, Lord of the Flies.
September 21 is the birthday of Girolamo Savonarola, born in Ferrara, Italy, in 1452. A Dominican monk in Florence, he gained a reputation for fiery, prophetic preaching. His sermons and speeches against tyranny made him popular with the people, but unpopular both with Florence’s ruling family, the Medicis, and with the wider church hierarchy. He has a complicated legacy: on one hand, he advocated — and briefly helped create — a modern form of democratic rule in Florence; on the other hand, in his moral zeal he organized “bonfires of the vanities,” destructions of certain books, art, and other objects he and his followers considered decadent. At the same time, he spoke fervently against church corruption, and in 1498, at the age of 45, he was executed — a forerunner of the Protestant and Catholic church reformers who followed in the sixteenth century.
September 21 is also the birthday of Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist Leonard Cohen, born in Montreal in 1934. He began as a poet and novelist, but despite some early critical success, he had trouble making ends meet — so he moved to the United States to become a songwriter and folk singer. His most famous song, "Hallelujah," has been covered by nearly 200 other singers in several languages, and is now the subject of a documentary.
Cohen famously wrote: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
September 22 is the day in 1961 the U.S. Congress approved a bill to establish the Peace Corps. Many had opposed the idea, especially Republicans, some of whom argued that taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for what one senator called a "utopian brainwash." But Republican representative Marguerite Stitt Church, having traveled extensively throughout Africa, stepped up to the podium and made a compelling, historic speech: “Here is something which is aimed right,” she said, “which is American, which is sacrificial — and which above all can somehow carry at the human level, to the people of the world, what they need to know; what it is to be free; what it is to have a next step and be able to take it; what it is to have something to look forward to, in an increase of human dignity and confidence.” Her argument persuaded many Republicans to support the bill, which passed on this day with wide bipartisan support.
September 23 is the first day of fall this year, the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, a position in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun when the planet’s axis is tilted “alongside” the Sun, so to speak, rather than tilted toward it (summer) or away from it (winter). This “tilted alongside” position means the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are split evenly between light and dark, making the hours of day and night nearly equal (hence “equinox”). In the Southern Hemisphere, today marks the vernal equinox, the first day of spring.