RELIGIOUS calendars can provide a reassuring rhythm to our lives. In the next few days, Christians will be re-enacting the familiar rituals of Holy Week: remembering Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples; his arrest, trial and crucifixion on Good Friday; and his Resurrection three days later at Easter.

This same weekend, many Hindus in Durban will commemorate Ratha Yatra, the Festival of Chariots. Last Saturday, Jews started celebrating the Passover, in honour of Moses leading them out of Egypt. And, just recently, our Muslim brothers and sisters marked the end of Ramadaan with the celebration of Eid ul-Fitr.

In a culture dominated by a solar calendar, the fact that these are all lunar festivals – their incidence determined by the phases of the moon – means that their dates are not fixed and so require us to be more aware of them. But, like the moon, they recur with a natural rhythm so we can look forward, each year, to the cycle of fasting and celebration.

Moreover, though there may be particular traditions in our own families, they are essentially communal events: I celebrate with other members of my local church or mosque or temple. And I know that I am linked with fellow believers who are celebrating in other parts of the world. If I pause to think deeper, I might also remember those who have been marking these same festivals across hundreds if not thousands of years and, in turn, feel connected to them.

When we have all but lost a sense of connection with the cycles of the earth – Woolworths providing us with the same fruit all year round regardless of what is in season locally – these religious calendars are an important reminder of the natural ebb and flow of life and how it embraces us all.

I feel that we need this particularly at the moment. Many politicians and business people seem obsessed at "showing their muscle" – to prove that they are in control of events and that they are not restricted by anything as democratic as the natural cycles of the planet that we all share. Sadly the decisions they make, whether fuelled by greed, a malign political strategy or just a show of whim, impact on all of us.

We may not care about, or even be aware of, the collapse in the value of the rand last week, but we will all feel the impact when fuel prices go up next month. From time to time, other "natural" disasters cut across the rhythm of our lives – Covid turned all of us upside down five years ago; and the massive floods in Durban that killed over 250 people hit during Holy Week three years ago.

Note that I put the word "natural" in inverted commas. Even if such events start from something in climate or biology, their impact is much more to do with how we as humans and societies prepare for them and respond. They might be triggered naturally, but how much they do or do not affect us is mostly man-made. It is inevitable that we are pre-occupied with the impact that bigger events have on us and those whom we love: Covid, floods, political machinations, budgets, tariffs, wars.

There is a temptation to feel that we are helpless in the face of the onslaught. But we can all, I am sure, bring to mind personal experiences of when – usually as a small local community – we worked together and responded to a catastrophe in ways that were life-affirming.

The reminiscences of lockdown that have been shared recently have been more positive than negative. The rhythm of religious festivals thus enables us to place any particular event – or even a stream of events – into a wider context. We are not just part of a 24-hour news cycle, or even a four- or five-year electoral cycle. We are part of a shared human and religious history that spans thousands of years.

Our fellow humans – in other parts of the world and at other points in time – have also faced threats and fears and crises. But ‘this too shall pass’. It is noticeable that each of the festivals that I mentioned at the beginning are ones that combine the deep human emotions of loss and recovery, of fasting and celebration, of destruction and creation, of death and life. And they share a belief that ultimately good will triumph over evil; that the God who made us all has a wider purpose which is bigger than any politician, no matter how brazen; that in God’s good time order will be restored.

To quote Julian of Norwich, an English Christian woman hermit writing 750 years ago: “All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

So let our celebrations at this time, whatever our religious tradition, be an opportunity for us to pause and re-connect with the deeper rhythms of the earth, and the profound mystery of our Creator, and give us reasons for hope when faced with the temptation to despair.

#holy-week

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