A Thought for the Day for Black Cat Radio – November 2019

I can’t believe that it’s November already – I’m not sure where this year has gone. November can be a dreary month really, as it’s generally damp and grey and a bit cold. However, it does happen to have my birthday in it, which cheers things up a bit. I’m not going to reveal my age but I do accept chocolates as presents if anyone feels like giving me some!

Celebrations are an important part of being human, whoever we are. Most of us like an excuse for a party or at least a chance to feel special for a day, whether it’s a birthday, wedding, graduation, passing a driving test, getting a new job or something else that’s important to us.

Religious people are no exception to this. For Christians, we have All Saints Day right at the beginning of this month, when we celebrate all the heroes of our faith, and of course Christmas is coming up, when we remember the birth of Jesus – as well as eating a lot of turkey. Sometimes people get the idea that being religious is a gloomy and serious business but actually Jesus’s first miracle was to turn gallons of water into wine so that people could carry on celebrating a wedding. Later he was accused of enjoying himself too much, which hardly fits the image of a stern, gloomy person.

Coming together to celebrate and have fun is good for us, brings us together and helps to lift us out of daily routines and problems for a while. And they don’t have to be big celebrations. We can celebrate our smaller things as well. So as we go into the dark days of winter I’d like to suggest that, if you’re looking for ways to keep cheerful, one way might be to find things to celebrate, big, small or in-between.