"Too Soon to Say 'Season's Greetings?" by Karen Rogers

I have friends who’d be delighted to listen to Christmas music year-round – and other friends who do everything humanly possible to keep such seasonal earworms out of their brains until after December 1. As for me? I confess that it irks me to see harbingers of the holiday season on the store shelves when I have the feeling that the Back to School sales and Labor Day outings have just concluded. When I haven’t carved a pumpkin yet, much less basted a Thanksgiving turkey, I think it’s too soon for merry exchanges of “Season’s Greetings!” I confess, though, the premature October snow that blanketed the metroplex this week did prime the pump for me. I’m markedly closer now to receiving, without animus, the seasonal greetings

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But there are many other seasons of our lives, right? One which has intrigued me for the past year or so relates to a Ghanaian bird symbol called the Sankofa.

The symbol is based on a mythical bird with its feet firmly planted forward, and its head turned backward. In its mouth, it holds a precious egg (or seed) which represents the future generations. Thus, the past serves as a guide for planning the future. The Sankofa reminds us that there must be movement and new learning as time passes. As this forward march proceeds, the knowledge of the past must never be forgotten.

Lately, I’ve been noticing the prominence of a Season of Sankofa – of studying the past for the sake of assessing the present and forecasting the future in several ways:

  • contact tracing for COVID-19;

  • political pollsters comparing 2016 results with current polling;

  • climate scientists examining weather trends;

  • studying the impact of childhood trauma on mental health and possible future social and academic achievement;

  • dialoguing about the church’s role in American racism and what import that has for the present and the future;

  • medical doctors collecting detailed health histories before making diagnoses and prescribing interventions;

and the list goes on.

I guess we could be said to be living in a Season of Sankofa—a time in which we find value in knowing what has gone before, bringing that awareness into our present condition, and using that knowledge to make informed decisions about the future.

That’s part of what’s happening during our Catalyst Renewal time. Although depending on print media and virtual conversation makes it more challenging, we look backward for a moment to remember our past; we share what we’re doing now, and we make plans for the next two years. We renew our commitment to the best of our past and use it to inform what we will become. That feels, to me, like a very welcome, fruitful kind of season. A Season of Renewal. A Season of Sankofa.

I can live in sync with that. I’ll exchange hearty “Seasons Greetings” with you when we’re thinking of Seasons of Renewal or Seasons of Sankofa. But give me a few more weeks, please, before reminding me of Grandma’s encounter with the reindeer or the hippopotamus on your list for Santa. My past tells me that, until December, I’ll probably still be pretty Grinchy about that.

Janet Hill