Happy Groundhog Day! Here we are in the "in between" days, after the Christmas rush of energy, before the reflective time of Lent and the celebration of Easter. What better way to mark the days than to honor – a woodchuck, a groundhog! Seriously, there is something wonderful about the attention given to this little creature. Seeing the men all dressed up in their Groundhog Day finery, pulling this little bucktoothed, furry animal out of a cage and placing him center stage, always makes me laugh.(The report is that he didn’t see his shadow so spring is on the way!)

In a book I was reading this week about the many lesser holidays found in January and February, the words"If we can hallow February, we can hallow any time" rang true. More than once this week when I asked the mostly rhetorical question, "How are you?", people have replied:"It’s February." So to hallow, or to make holy, these days seems quite the task.

I am reminded of the movie Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray as a cranky, self-centered news reporter sent to cover the story of the groundhog seeing his shadow in Pennsylvania. Bill moves through the day being rude, dismissive, even abusive to waitresses, townspeople, a panhandler,his co-workers, everyone he meets.  Each morning as his alarms goes off he find the same song playing, the same weather report,indeed he finds he is living the same day -Groundhog Day- over and over again.

February can seem like that…living the same cold, gray, sunless day over and over again. But as Bill Murray slowly begins to realize in this movie, it is his – our – responsibility to "hallow" the day. Slowly he begins to become vulnerable to the people around him, he treats his co-workers with respect and kindness, he generously gives momey to the person begging, he tells the waitress how beautiful she is. He recognizes the gift of the day…the holiness of the day…and in turn makes holy his life.

The poet Mary Oliver asks this question "Tell me, what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" 

Tell me, what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious Groundhog Day? May you find at the end of the day that it was not humdrum but filled with holiness.