Was the moon seen?

For most of the Msm world, the month of fasting began on Saturday the 27th. For us, however, it was a bit more complicated.

See, the month of fasting starts with the sighting of the moon and ends with the sighting of the next new moon. That gets complicated when the moon is only briefly visible, when it's not visible with the naked eye, or when... wait for it... it's cloudy out.

So on Friday night a lot of people were sitting outside, staring at the dark sky, wondering and waiting to see if someone in the country would catch a glimpse of the moon. If the moon was sighted then the next day everyone would begin their daytime fast.

"If the big religious leader doesn't declare that the fast has started, I'm going to party on the beach with my husband!" Thus declared my next-door neighbor. As various neighbors wandered past, asking the question "was the moon seen? Any news?" she remained set in the opinion that, despite popular opinion, the moon wouldn't be seen and the fast would start on Sunday.

Well, she was right. Although the moon was visible in our region, we never saw it, so only the most religious started their fast yesterday. The rest are beginning today.

It's a significant month in the Msm world. The pace of life changes, the music changes, the dress changes, and the focus shifts a bit as everyone observes (or puts on the appearance of observing) the rules of their religion.

How truth travels

I recently had the opportunity to go to a local night of theater. Now I could comment on how the actual start time was entirely unknown (and we discovered that they were getting going when we heard the music blaring across town from the stadium). Or I could comment on how I felt like I was on the old end of the age spectrum there, the event having drawn the teen crowd out. But what really caught my attention was the content of the skits presented.

The skits were full of exaggeration and catch phrases (which I now hear all over town), but the content was rather serious. The first skit was presented as showing the importance of education and the power of a good mother. So we have a kid who wants to study and a father who doesn't see it as important. The mother circumvents the father's declarations that the kid doesn't need to study by secretly sending the kid to school. Then the father runs into a situation where he needs to be able to read. He comes back and declares that education is important and personally takes his kid to register for school.

Lesson learned? Fathers can be capricious. Education is important. The mother is always right.

The second skit was set on the French island. A family is there illegally and they face various problems. They're scared to go out because the immigration police might find them and send them home. They're scared to go out because there are bands of youth robbing people and beating them up. One day the girl goes out and is attacked, robbed, and comes home upset. Her father doesn't believe her story about what happened, declaring that "if only she'd been properly dressed" it wouldn't have happened.Well, a few days later he goes out and is attacked, robbed, beaten up, and learns his lesson.

Lesson learned? Life on the French island isn't as great as it seems it should be. Just because you haven't seen it doesn't make it true.

I don't know that those are the skits that I would have put on, but they caught the audience's attention and kept them out until long after midnight (I went home early and got a summary of the last skit from a friend).