Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Rethinking Groundhog Day, four weeks later

Over the weekend, I heard how the groundhog was right and spring had come early! That was on our warm sunny Friday afternoon. On Friday evening, I was at McDonalds and saw the teens who had proclaimed the coming of spring most boldly freezing their tails off for lack of winter clothing. This morning as I walked my kids to school it was –14 with windchill making it feeling like –21. We’ve now had four more weeks of winter (minus one Friday afternoon) since Wiarton Willy, Shubenacadie Sam and Punxsutawney Phil did not see their shadows on Groundhog Day and thus proclaimed an early spring. (To find out what happened when New Brunswick’s new prognosticating groundhog could not be roused from his sleep, see Ken Symes’ Newsvine column – its too funny!) Isn’t it odd that Christians have so often faced the charged of being “unscientific,” when, in truth, much of our cultural belief and practice is unscientific, including relying on a groundhog with a 39% accuracy rating to tell us when spring will come?!?

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