On Ground Hog Day, come out and play . . .

Saturday. Sofa. Coffee.

Happy Groundhog Day. I apologize for not getting out Groundhog Day cards this year.  I was afraid of leaving someone out.

I like Ground Hog day because the notion is just fun. No big deal, nobody takes it seriously, yet inevitably we all take notice of it for a few moments.  Perhaps the good natured interest continues because of our annual winter weariness and longing for the promise of the slowly arriving spring. That thought certainly crossed my mind as I stayed under the covers this morning dreading the twenty feet or so between me and the thermostat, which I have been cutting off since getting my power bill a couple of months ago. Plus, I just sleep better in the arctic cold.  I think my ancestors must have been bears rather than monkeys. I think my fore-animals must have trod the frozen tundra rather than the tropics.  Hibernation is something I enjoy, until I have to awaken, get up, and start foraging for coffee.  Come to think of it I must be of mixed heritage, since coffee is more of a tropical product, and that is also something I seem to innately like.  But I digress.  That's okay, because this is Saturday, after all.

Even though I do not buy into the myth, each year something inside of me hopes that the Groundhog will overcome fear, that he or she will stand up, shadow or not, and declare that no shadow is worth wasting time, and begin planting pansies.

It's just a shadow, after all.  And his or her own shadow at that.

In his first inaugural address in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said:

"This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.   .   ."

Others have spoken of fear.  Fear not. Be not afraid.  There is no fear in love.  Love casts out fear. Those are from the Bible.  And then there is the great philosopher Babe Ruth:

"Don't let the fear of striking out keep you from stepping up to the plate."

The Creator wired  all of us animals, from the simplest to the most complex, to have involuntary reactions to perceived dangers.  Like deer in the headlights, unfortunately  frozen to avoid detection.  Or an injured owl, trying to rip to shreds any and everything in sight, including the hands of its rescuer and healer..

Sometimes fear can save our lives.  Sometimes it keeps us from being saved, or saving ourselves.

Groundhogs and deer and owls and amoebas can't help it.  They have little choice but to give into their instinctual responses to fear. Sometimes the result is survival.  Sometimes the result is a needless injury or death.

But humankind is different.  We are blessed to have the intellect to choose against the instinctual reactions to fear. We can overcome paralysis, make ourselves move.  We can deny the instinct to lash out in violence.

These cold dark days are becoming wearisome.  It is time to overcome the fears cause us to react with paralysis or mindless, indiscriminate violence.

It is time for spring, and new life, a new creation.

So what are we afraid of?

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