"Groundhog Day in America"

Growing up in Pennsylvania I learned about Punxsutawney Phil at a young age. I even believed for awhile that how much winter remained for us depended on whether or not Phil saw his shadow.  Again this year he saw his shadow and the top hat wearing, facial hair covered pompous men pronounced 6 more weeks of winter.  What winter?  It was 52 and sunny in Lafayette on Groundhog Day.  I guess it is an amusing and fairly harmless exercise that gets lots of media coverage each year.  But I know there is always 6 weeks to the official start of spring whatever Phil sees!

Some years ago I enjoyed the movie "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray as 'Phil', a weather man from Pittsburgh.  What happens is he gets stuck in February 2-Groundhog Day.  He ends up living the same day over and over and over again.  Phil seems to be the only one who realizes what is going on.  One of the lines from the movie I really like is: "Well, what if there is no tomorrow?  There wasn't one today."

It seems to me that many of us are stuck, living the same pattern over and over and over again.  And that pattern finds expression in apocalyptic pronouncements about there being no tomorrow.  Following this year's State of the Union address Governor Mitch Daniels spoke to the nation about our being on the edge of a catastrophe from which America might not recover.  He suggested we have time but not much to choose the right path.  As states debate giving the same rights and benefits to same sex couples as married couples voices speak out warning us that the moral fiber and fabric of America will unravel if this is allowed to happen.  In the arena of the Church preachers and leaders speak about apocalyptic disaster and even end times if we let priests marry or women be pastors or people question the Bible.

And this is not new-we have been doing it over and over and over for generations.  Sometimes I am tempted to despair that there is no other way and we are destined to do it time after time after time.  What gives me hope comes from what happens to Phil in the movie and the presence of the Book of Revelation in the Bible.  In the movie Phil moves through the days growing beyond his self focus and spends more and more time befriending and helping others.  Finally there comes a morning when he wakes up and it is February 3-a new day!  I am promising myself-in a year in which I suspect politicians, community leaders, and church leaders will ramp up apocalyptic pronouncements-I will commit to spending more time 'befriending others.'  I think it is the way to a new day.  AND I will read the Book of Revelation for the message it holds: hope in times of desperation and encouragement to keep doing the right thing because God is going to bring the world through to a new day.

We don't have to be doomed to spend our days believing the fearful pronouncements of no tomorrow.  We don't have to live in the winter shadow of division, doubt, and hate.  Like Phil in the movie we can wake up to a new day as we help others in this day.  Spring is coming!