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05 February 2025
MSL, being as it is a minimalist, ahistorical religion, perhaps should not have any holidays of its own. However, I think in many or most cases, a meaningful MSLian interpretation of existing holidays may be produced.
Some examples:
New Year's Day: A mathematical holiday (based on a counting system), perhaps suggests philosophy and thus MSL. New Year's Day may be celebrated by many countries despite their different cultures. New Year's Day is about taking stock and intending to do better (VMH?). It's about simplicity (MSL/VMH) (at least in the tradition of eating black-eyed peas and rice). It's about looking to the future (VMH?).
Valentine's Day: An MSLian parent might communicate to their old-enough children that Valentine's Day is about romance: finding special people and finding them special, and about being friends with people, particularly of the opposite sex. These are good things. But romance also brings sexual desire, often to the point of lust, which is a bad thing -- maybe sometimes with some good results, but inherently bad. Also we can desire people in ways more "emotional" than "sexual" in a lustful way. Also, finding someone special could turn that person into a replacement for God to us. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. If it does, that's a bad thing. So romance is a mixed thing, something potentially dangerous, bad, healthy, and good all at the same time. And often actually bad in some ways when it's good in others. (This discussion helps explain MSL's view on sexuality. Maybe something like it is a good thing to meditate on, when you're an adult.)
Passover: thinking about slavery and getting out of it. Slavery to sin, slavery to people who sin, slavery to thought systems, slavery to people who favor sin and messed-up thought systems. The Exodus account is good to think about and apply to your life. Maybe commemorate past passages out of slavery, in your own life. For me, I had a dark time in life, getting out of psychological debt to various people I took on to try to help me with my work. At one point, I thought eating turmeric and black pepper would help me recover. I don't know either way if it does, and I don't eat it anymore. But for a while I ate it regularly. So maybe on Passover, I'll eat it again, to remember.
Good Friday: meditation on the cross -- altruistic self-risking. Also the idea of atonement, of a sacrifice that makes things right between people / with God.
Easter: meditation on recovery from the cross. Also on the Resurrection / Millennium.
Day of Atonement: think of what you've done wrong, resolve to change. Actually change on that day if you can.
Halloween: meditation on supernatural evil and spiritual warfare.
Thanksgiving: a "protestant" way to read this holiday is to think of poverty and alienation, rather than its fullness and family. (Similar to the somewhat "protestant", protesting, response to Valentine's Day above.) Fullness is a dangerous idea, and family as well if "family" conveys "there is no way you will ever be not accepted". My gratefulness is my valuing of my own well-being -- probably OK if my life is hard, maybe not OK if my life isn't so hard and my gratitude blinds me to the neediness of the universe. Going with the grain of Thanksgiving could involve a careful appreciation of one's own well-being and one's family, mixed with the protestant view. Remember that it's important to hunger when God hungers.
Christmas: meditation on kenosis and incarnation.
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This list is from an American perspective. The examples are Western, common in America, some secular, others Christian, some Jewish. These are some that I know or know something about. But there are many others, like smaller American holidays (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, President's Day, Labor Day, Veteran's Day, Memorial Day), smaller Christian holidays (All Saints' Day, Día de los Muertos, various saints' days, Advent, Lent, Reformation Day, etc.), non-Western religious holidays (e.g. Eid al-Fitr, Diwali, Buddha's Birthday), or ethnic holidays (that is, of a people group, but not America overall) (like various non-Western New Years, Kwanzaa). I will leave these for now, but probably with some thinking, one could see an MSLian interpretation for them as well.