Sunday at lunch at our place (February 2nd) I found myself saying "Let me try to explain!". We were finishing lunch and one of our newer residents, a young and charming priest from Nigeria by the name of Father Anthony who is a new member of our International Priests Program and is living with us as he gets his papers, drivers test, clearances, etc. taken care of. We had greeted each other earlier with "Happy Feast of the Presentation of the Lord" and "Happy Groundhog Day". Well, he asked: "What is groundhog day?"
To someone from another culture and another climate, try to explain that tid bit of lore! Let me try to explain!
The few of us at lunch proceeded to explain the tradition of Punxsutawney Phil, the local groundhog personality from the nearby small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, who predicts every year on the morning of February 2nd that we will see either an early Spring or six more weeks of Winter. It all has to do with Phil seeing or not seeing his shadow. The event is a great celebration for the townsfolk and a multitude of visitors who party hardy! The news covers it in great detail. And this has been happening on February 2nd since 1887. With a few odd years that were missed, the score is: 103 years of a longer Winter ... 20 years of an early Spring. This year was an early Spring prognosis. Try to have that make sense to an intelligent person from another culture.
The other thing that we tried to explain is our Winter weather. Father Anthony has rarely seen snow and the cold is uncommon for him. We have been warning him of our winters ... but his experience since he arrived in early January has been strange at best. We've had a rather mild January ... we are behind in regular snowfall ... even yesterday at lunch we had at least an inch of snow on the ground and it was in the low 30's ... and today it was 64 and sunny. So again, Father Anthony, let me try to explain our weather. I did reassure him that he will know Winter when he finally experiences it.
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