Hello!
Welcome to Winter Solstice.
Some of you might have been coming here for years. Some of you might be here for the very first time. All of you are welcome. Before we get started, I want to give a little bit of history on the origin of Solstice and explain what’s going to happen tonight.
The first step of Solstice was about fourteen billion years ago, which is the current estimate for the origin of the universe. Really, that’s the first step of anything if you think about it. The second step of Solstice was about four and a half billion years ago, which is about when the earth formed in its orbit and would begin to have a point when parts of its surface were tilted away from the sun more often, creating shorter days and longer nights. The third step of Solstice was around twelve thousand years ago, which is our current best guess for when religion became a feature of human society. We started telling stories about why it was that things got dark, and cold, and hard. We started traditions.
Our stories were wrong. But in the telling of those stories, we bonded with each other. That bond was good and valuable thing, and those stories weren’t utterly and completely wrong; it really did get colder for a while, then warmer. Tonight we’re part of a tradition, not just of Secular Solstice, but of a much longer process where we look at the past and try to do a little better, to make fewer mistakes.
It’s also fun. I’m here because I enjoy it. I hope you do too.
One tradition is New Years Resolutions. We’re confident the practice existed at least in the 1600s, as we have people’s written resolutions. The practice is probably even older than that, depending on how lax you want to be with what counts; Babylonians promised their gods to behave better in the year to come, and that was around four thousand years ago. The thing is, New Years Resolutions don’t have a reputation for working. The data I could find suggests about twenty percent of people fail their resolutions by the end of the first week. Humans, it turns out, aren’t very good at making fewer mistakes. Tonight you aren’t going to be asked to make a promise to the gods, but I do want to put that theme in your mind. Humans aren’t automatically strategic, but we can be manually strategic.
Here’s how to participate in the Secular Solstice.
We’re going to have some songs. You’re encouraged to sing along, especially on the chorus. If you feel like you’re not a good enough singer, I’d like you to sing along anyway. Let’s practice that for a moment- I’m just going to sing a note, and you’re encouraged to sing with me, just to get used to making a bit of noise, okay? [Sing an A note, hold it, then wave hands to stop the audience.] Good! We’ll do that with words later. While we’re on the subject of sound and silence, please take a moment to turn your cell phone ringers off.
We’re also going to have some speeches. Some of those speeches will have some call and response parts, where the speaker up in front will say something and you’re encouraged to give the next lines. In particular, there’s a call and response bit that I’d like to practice now.
Speaker: If the box contains a diamond,
Audience: I desire to believe that the box contains a diamond;
Speaker: If the box does not contain a diamond,
Audience: I desire to believe that the box does not contain a diamond;
Together: Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want.
Thank you!
That’s the basics. Sing out, speak out, and tomorrow remember the people in this room who sang and spoke with you.
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