Groundhog Day, Every Day

Happy Groundhog Day!  That day when we send a furry little critter out into the cold world to decide the future; when we allow the shadows to determine what our next several weeks will hold for us.  Ah yes, a sacred day to be celebrated if ever there was one!  (insert sarcasm here) 

When I hear Groundhog Day, I always think of the 1993 movie with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, where Bill Murray’s character gets stuck in a day that keeps repeating itself over and over again.  But each time he wakes up to the same day again, he has the chance to change pieces of the way the day happens, and slowly things are made better, including himself and his relationships.  How nice it would be at times to have the chance to re-live a day and try to make it better!  And yet, in many ways, every day gives us that opportunity.  Enter Groundhog Day…

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I just returned from Washington, D.C., where I was attending the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering.  It was a fantastic conference!  But it was also a challenging one.  In addition to great speakers and the gathering of wonderful people who share a passion for service and justice stemming from our Catholic faith, the conference also included a number of workshops on very concrete, real issues today—gun violence, racial discrimination, wage theft, climate change, criminal justice reform, poverty, countries at war, etc.  These were hard, often depressing workshops!  At times I found myself in tears; at times found myself asking “why?” as the only prayer I could think of in the midst of the overwhelming realities being discussed.  There were moments of feeling completely helpless at the number and the severity of issues facing so many in our world today. 

Yet my favorite part of the conference was how it didn’t stop with just discussing the issues; it offered participants a chance to do something about them! 

The conference was extra powerful for me because of its location in a setting marked by historical justice-seekers—those leaders of the past who have witnessed to how hope and action together can make a difference.   

Despite the “Blizzard of 2016” on the east coast, I was able to trek out (in true brave, or crazy, Minnesota fashion) and see many of the monuments around the National Mall – Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King, FDR, Thomas Jefferson.  Each one, along with their striking sculptures and design also includes quotes from those they memorialize; wise and poignant thoughts from people who have striven for peace in their day and challenging settings.  Though each time in history was a different situation, they all had similar needs of unity, peace, welfare and compassion for all in the midst of some cold and ugly realities and issues facing so many. 

And like some of my workshops, visiting these monuments found me at times in tears.  So many times in our history, so many who have gone before us seeking so many of the same goals of peace and justice, and yet still so much hurt and hate remains.  Is history just caught in a cycle of evil, repeating itself over and over again?  How do we break that cycle?  Will things ever truly get better? 

But each player remembered along that National Mall was given the chance to live and lead in a way that could put things right, make things better.  Obviously they couldn’t fix it all, that kind of healing can’t be done overnight.  But each did something.  And perhaps above even what they did in their own day in history, these justice-seekers also affected the future by letting it be known in their hearts and in their world (and in the walls around their monuments) that a sense of futility, no matter what the situation, is simply not acceptable.  As the prophets of old, and the prophets of our more recent history, have shown us: there is always hope.  We can, we must, strive for something different – something better! 

I also visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum (on International Holocaust Remembrance Day no less).  Again, I found myself in tears; again, a feeling of helplessness, with that prayer of “why?” ringing through my head and heart.  Yet it was a powerful museum not only in the sad reality it shared, but in the hope it pushes us towards.  An entire floor of the (four-floor) exhibit is focused not on the past, but on the future—encouraging all to recognize the needs, the discriminations, the unjust powers, of our fellow humans in the world still today, and to take action!  The slogan “Never again” has been said after the atrocities of the Holocaust, urging us to ensure that such inhumane evil isn’t allowed to happen again.  And yet, sadly, it has happened again (and some would argue is right now).  But there are things we can do – hopeful, helpful things. 

Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, we can use each day to attempt to make things in the world around us better: 

* Acknowledge past genocides (Native Americans, the Holocaust, Rwanda)
* Recognize current realities of equal horror (Syria, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Immigrants and Refugees and races and religions facing discrimination here in the U.S.)
* Take steps to end them (welcome the stranger, disseminate truth rather than false propaganda, participate in Catholic Relief Services, encourage government to work for peace not arms, and poverty reduction domestically and globally) 
* Live your life for others, not just yourself (and for those who are “other,” not just our own immediate “bubbles”) 

As Franklin D. Roosevelt said at the time of World War II and the Holocaust, “More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.”  Let us work for an end once and for all, to the war on poverty, the war for life and dignity, the war of nations and of ideal-isms.  History is marked by people who have tried.  Each new time period like a new day, with those making changes for an end to the cycles of suffering, striving for a better day to come.  Now it’s our turn! 

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Every day can be our “groundhog day.”  We are given the chance with every new day to break the negative cycles and situations, and bring hope for a new day tomorrow.  Unlike Bill Murray, let us not repeat horrible situations, and unlike the furry little critter himself, let us not crawl back into our holes out of fear of the shadows.  In the words so clearly etched in the walls of the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial remind us: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” 

Today (every day) is Groundhog Day.  A day which holds the power to affect the future.  We live in a cold world with many cold, harsh realities; we can either enter it with hope, determined not to shrink away from the shadows, or we can burrow back in and allow the cold to continue.  Either way, we have the power to determine the future.  It is my prayer that our actions would work to stop the negative cycles of history, and bring about a new “day” of hope and life for our world! 

Ah yes, it is a sacred day to be celebrated!  (no sarcasm intended)