This is the 30th December 2011, and as such is the second to last day of 2011. Except in Samoa, which has chosen to eliminate this day altogether. I can't help but admire their chutzpah. I don't know how much you know about Samoa. As a rugby mad South African, all I have known about these Pacific Islanders is that they are fearsome combatants on a rugby field, and major intercession is called for in every world cup if the Springboks have to play them en route to the final. We never expect to lose to them, mind you, but we DO expect to be injured. Lots of us! By that I mean lots of our players. As an armchair rugby selector (like many of you), I make suggestions very loudly as I read the team selection in the paper, or more recently on my iPad. I make my team selection based on who we can afford to lose with a broken nose, arm, collar bone, or leg. "Don't select HIM you idiots! He is our best fly half and he can't kick with a broken leg. Some huge, vicious Samoan forward is going to jump on him and crush his kneecaps!" It doesn't help in the least when I see scriptures tattooed on bulging forearms as the team gustily sing their national anthem prior to going onto the field to commit mayhem. They are Christians too? My brethren? Lord help us all, but especially our South Africans.
I digress. As I was saying, my knowledge of Samoa has been fairly limited until now. Another digression. I don't know about you, but I am a positive mine of useless information. It is not by accident that my family are champion Trivial Pursuit players. We have all inherited a gene that causes us to Hoover up information and store it in the deep recesses of our brains, to be hauled out whenever we need to win an argument. I am in the throes of information overload and insomnia, feeling the need to read the news on every conceivable iPad news app I have, and then get an anxiety attack in case any interesting piece of breaking news has escaped me. For an entire week I had no wifi, and as I feared, I missed the news that a particularly colourful politician, Amichand Rajbansi, had died on Thursday, and I found out a full 24 hours late!!!! However, I am still alive, albeit mortified that I didn't find this out within minutes of the sad news breaking.
Back to Samoa! This delightful place has taken the brave decision to change time zones so radically that they have skipped an entire day. Today never was in Samoa. Here comes some of my newly acquired knowledge. 119 years ago some American traders persuaded the Samoans to align their islands' time with that of America. The problem with this was that it put Samoa nearly a full day behind neighbouring Australia and New Zealand. Local time up till 29th December 2011 had been 23 hours behind Auckland. But now it is one hour ahead. They are now the first major country to see in 2012. Samoans went to sleep on Thursday, 29th December 2011 and woke up on Saturday 31st December 2011. If your birthday was on the 30th, you missed it. Sorry!
There is something delightful about this decision to rewrite time. It is not the first time Samoa has made a change of some magnitude. In 2009 the same government made the decision to change the laws of the road and make everyone drive on the left instead of the right hand side of the road. This was potentially far more dangerous than the time change. It is one thing to get up and go to work because you think it is Friday, only to find the office closed, and a sign on the door reminding you that it is Saturday. Imagine reversing out of your driveway and swinging into oncoming traffic because you had a momentary lapse of concentration. I remember doing this in Dallas once. I had my own car, a Texas driver's licence, and the kind of lapse I have just described. I swung under an overpass onto the wrong side of the road, and though I lived to tell the story, I have sometimes wondered how many years were stripped from the lives of the terrified Texans I encountered as I narrowly escaped killing us all. The Samoan leader I watched on You Tube was cheerfully unperturbed. "We just ring a bell and tell them this is a new day, and then they all remember," he declared. Really? Ok, if you say so. The Samoans who were interviewed seemed to think that this change of time zone called for a massive party. The only people who were not ecstatic, it seems, were the Seventh Day Adventists. They were split down the middle as to whether the sabbath fell on Saturday or Sunday. I see a church split looming.
Here is another bit of fairly useless trivia which I have to share because I just found it out, so naturally I have to tell someone. This is not the first time an island nation has chosen to change time zones. In 1995 Kiribati moved Millenium Island in a similar fashion so that it would be the first place to see in the new century. If you have not previously known this interesting piece of trivia, don't feel bad! Nor did I know. I am now a minor authority on these islands but won't bore you with the details. Incidentally, Samoa's neighbour, Tokelau, has followed Samoa's example and changed time zones as well. The downside for some of the islanders is that certain bars were located on the western side of the islands, and their claim to fame was that their bars had the best views of the final sunset of the old year. Not any more!
All this has made me aware of our attachment to time. I think we all love New Year because it gives us a sense of new beginnings. It is our opportunity to put behind us the mistakes and heartaches of the year that is dying, and embrace the new year with revived optimism, hope, and faith. It is 33 years since I made the best new beginning anyone can ever experience, and that is being born again. Since then time has lost its grip on me. In its place has come awareness of eternity, and time has become of less and less importance to me. We truly are wasting away outwardly (not literally in my case as I have actually expanded), but we are being renewed inwardly. So I am able to relate to people of all ages, finding great wisdom and kindred spirits among some who are very young in years, and seeing incredible immaturity in some people who are a lot older. I long for that moment when time ceases and eternity embraces us. Until then I pray that your new beginning in 2012 will be God-filled, and that you will LIVE every day with joyous, reckless faith in the One Who created all of this.
And if Samoa can eliminate a day by a simple decision to declare Friday 30th December 2011 non-existent, it gives me hope that we can declare, with similar confidence that it will be universally accepted, that negativity and ingratitude and murmuring in the church will no longer exist.
Happy New Year. Speak to you again in 2012.
Love,
Fiona
I digress. As I was saying, my knowledge of Samoa has been fairly limited until now. Another digression. I don't know about you, but I am a positive mine of useless information. It is not by accident that my family are champion Trivial Pursuit players. We have all inherited a gene that causes us to Hoover up information and store it in the deep recesses of our brains, to be hauled out whenever we need to win an argument. I am in the throes of information overload and insomnia, feeling the need to read the news on every conceivable iPad news app I have, and then get an anxiety attack in case any interesting piece of breaking news has escaped me. For an entire week I had no wifi, and as I feared, I missed the news that a particularly colourful politician, Amichand Rajbansi, had died on Thursday, and I found out a full 24 hours late!!!! However, I am still alive, albeit mortified that I didn't find this out within minutes of the sad news breaking.
Back to Samoa! This delightful place has taken the brave decision to change time zones so radically that they have skipped an entire day. Today never was in Samoa. Here comes some of my newly acquired knowledge. 119 years ago some American traders persuaded the Samoans to align their islands' time with that of America. The problem with this was that it put Samoa nearly a full day behind neighbouring Australia and New Zealand. Local time up till 29th December 2011 had been 23 hours behind Auckland. But now it is one hour ahead. They are now the first major country to see in 2012. Samoans went to sleep on Thursday, 29th December 2011 and woke up on Saturday 31st December 2011. If your birthday was on the 30th, you missed it. Sorry!
There is something delightful about this decision to rewrite time. It is not the first time Samoa has made a change of some magnitude. In 2009 the same government made the decision to change the laws of the road and make everyone drive on the left instead of the right hand side of the road. This was potentially far more dangerous than the time change. It is one thing to get up and go to work because you think it is Friday, only to find the office closed, and a sign on the door reminding you that it is Saturday. Imagine reversing out of your driveway and swinging into oncoming traffic because you had a momentary lapse of concentration. I remember doing this in Dallas once. I had my own car, a Texas driver's licence, and the kind of lapse I have just described. I swung under an overpass onto the wrong side of the road, and though I lived to tell the story, I have sometimes wondered how many years were stripped from the lives of the terrified Texans I encountered as I narrowly escaped killing us all. The Samoan leader I watched on You Tube was cheerfully unperturbed. "We just ring a bell and tell them this is a new day, and then they all remember," he declared. Really? Ok, if you say so. The Samoans who were interviewed seemed to think that this change of time zone called for a massive party. The only people who were not ecstatic, it seems, were the Seventh Day Adventists. They were split down the middle as to whether the sabbath fell on Saturday or Sunday. I see a church split looming.
Here is another bit of fairly useless trivia which I have to share because I just found it out, so naturally I have to tell someone. This is not the first time an island nation has chosen to change time zones. In 1995 Kiribati moved Millenium Island in a similar fashion so that it would be the first place to see in the new century. If you have not previously known this interesting piece of trivia, don't feel bad! Nor did I know. I am now a minor authority on these islands but won't bore you with the details. Incidentally, Samoa's neighbour, Tokelau, has followed Samoa's example and changed time zones as well. The downside for some of the islanders is that certain bars were located on the western side of the islands, and their claim to fame was that their bars had the best views of the final sunset of the old year. Not any more!
All this has made me aware of our attachment to time. I think we all love New Year because it gives us a sense of new beginnings. It is our opportunity to put behind us the mistakes and heartaches of the year that is dying, and embrace the new year with revived optimism, hope, and faith. It is 33 years since I made the best new beginning anyone can ever experience, and that is being born again. Since then time has lost its grip on me. In its place has come awareness of eternity, and time has become of less and less importance to me. We truly are wasting away outwardly (not literally in my case as I have actually expanded), but we are being renewed inwardly. So I am able to relate to people of all ages, finding great wisdom and kindred spirits among some who are very young in years, and seeing incredible immaturity in some people who are a lot older. I long for that moment when time ceases and eternity embraces us. Until then I pray that your new beginning in 2012 will be God-filled, and that you will LIVE every day with joyous, reckless faith in the One Who created all of this.
And if Samoa can eliminate a day by a simple decision to declare Friday 30th December 2011 non-existent, it gives me hope that we can declare, with similar confidence that it will be universally accepted, that negativity and ingratitude and murmuring in the church will no longer exist.
Happy New Year. Speak to you again in 2012.
Love,
Fiona
So . . .being unconventional wins souls?! Who'd have though that? The harvest begins.
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