Calendar and Meaning

As a boy, our dinner table was a place of amazing conversations. My father readily invited people to dine with us, and my mother as readily accommodated them. On top of that, we had a stream of visitors from all over the world, people who knew and respected my father. Many were missionaries, others were world travelers; one was a part of a film crew that went to Loristan and had exciting tales to report; another was a French doctor from Central Africa, and so on and on. I remember vividly the exotic tales they had to report. This was an important part of my education. I recall one man whose World War I saga included the war, imprisonment, and wanderings over two continents. At times, he lost track of the days of the week, the months, and then even the exact year. Meaning, he said, was tied to time and the calendar. The calendar listed Sundays, holy days, and more. It punctuated time with meaning, an imposed meaning which was more than ourselves.

Think about that. We live in a world with a given meaning, given by God and by man’s long pilgrimage of faith. Remove that, and we drift into meaninglessness.

{R.J. Rushdoony, Random Notes}