When I went to school, we always talked about the start of the seasons starting around the 21st of March, June, September, and December. Oh sure depending on where the earth was in its orbit, it might start earlier on the 19th or maybe as late as the 23rd, but the first day of Autumn was always around the 21st of September. The new season would always begin around the solstice or the equinox.
When I moved to Australia though, I found out that they used the meterological definition of the seasons. The first day of autumn was March 1. The first day of winter was June 1, etc. Having grown up with the idea that seasons began on the equinox or the solstice, it took a bit of getting used to these change of dates. Soon though I adapted. I realized the weather would do whatever the weather would do whether it was considered officially to be a spring day or a summer day. Weather does not necessarily follow the boxes we arbitrarily make.
Most of us like to compartamentalize things. It helps us to keep things in order. Certain things in our minds are always good. Other things are always inferior. Unfortunately we generalize with people as well. Some use racism, nationalist, sexism, gender identity, language spoken, schools attended to make snap judgment on eithers. Such generalizations are wrong. Take myself. I am me. I do things in a certain way. I act in certain ways. I relate to the world in certain ways. It would be wrong to think that all United Church ministers feels exactly the same way I do. Not all men possess my skills or lack of skills. Not everyone who speaks English (just like I speak English) is good at singing. Not everyone who is left handed like I am thinks we need to be kinder to one another. Not everyone with a shaved head, like me, abhors violence. Just like weather refused to be boxed in to one way of thinking, we need to realize that everyone is a special. No one acts the way they do because they are of one race, or are bisexual, or they speak Urdu. Let us break open the box and widen our understanding. Blessing
