Theologian's Almanac for Week of September 15, 2024
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 15:
September 15 is the beginning of National Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States; the month runs from September 15 to October 15. Its predecessor, Hispanic Heritage Week, was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, having been originally proposed by Rep. Edward R. Roybal of Los Angeles, California. September 15 was chosen as the date to begin because it’s the eve of “The Cry of Delores” (also known as “El Grito de Independencia,” The Cry of Independence), the day in 1810 when Roman Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rang his church bell in Delores, Mexico, beginning the Mexican War of Independence from Spain. Today, Mexico, most Central American countries, and Chile all commemorate their independence from Spain on September 15 or shortly thereafter.
September 15 is also the day in 1963 that a bomb went off in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. One of the most segregated cities in the country, Birmingham was a key battleground in the Civil Rights Movement, and the church was a common meeting place for movement leaders. Four schoolgirls — Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins, and Denise McNair — were killed in the terrorist blast, and more than 20 other church members were injured. The press reports were vivid: “Dozens of survivors, their faces dripping blood from the glass that flew out of the church’s stained glass windows, staggered around the building in a cloud of white dust raised by the explosion. The blast crushed two nearby cars like toys and blew out windows blocks away... Parts of brightly painted children’s furniture were strewn about in one Sunday school room, and blood stained the floors.”
A member of the Ku Klux Klan, Robert Chambliss, was convicted of dynamite possession without a permit, and so was sentenced to a $100 fine and six months in jail — but was found not guilty in the murders of the four girls. A subsequent investigation revealed that the FBI, at J. Edgar Hoover’s direction, had suppressed key evidence against Chambliss. He was retried in 1973, found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison. Two of his accomplices were tried and convicted in 2001 and 2002.
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.”
(SALT’s new Advent devotional is all about stars — including the North Star’s role in escaping enslavement. Check it out here: “Starry Nights: An Advent Devotional Full of Light and Wonder.”
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.”