þorrablót

Pastor’s Epistle—February, A.D. 2017 A

The Feast of Frost

February tends not to be a particularly glamorous month. Christmas has come and gone, the winter wonderland is wearing out its welcome, and we’re starting to yearn for a spring that’s still a good month or two away. What we need is a good holiday to keep our minds off of the grey and the gloom, and February does offer up a few of those: notably Candlemas (a fantastic but largely overlooked holiday) and St Valentine’s Day (a nice celebration but probably not on anybody’s top ten list).

Icelanders are no strangers to needing a pick-me-up when winter starts to get a little long in the tooth. They drink fish oil—yes, fish oil—to buoy their spirits. And they celebrate one of northern Europe’s quirkier holidays, Thorrablot. Thorrablot honors Thorri (“Frost”), a mythical Norwegian king found in the Orkneyinga Saga. Since the Viking Age, Icelanders have relied heavily upon the hearty Icelandic sheep for survival. Meat, milk, and wool kept them warm and fed through the winter. But come February, winter stores would be running thin, and the only parts of the sheep left in the larder would be the, shall we say, less popular bits.

And so the Icelanders would throw a party, eating unpalatable animal odds and ends cured in lactic acid, pairing it with fermented shark, and chasing the whole spread with a liquor so vile that they nicknamed it Black Death. Some party, eh? Like lutefisk for the Norwegians, Thorrablot has become a point of cultural pride: a celebration of hardiness, cheer, and gratitude for every last bit of blessing that we have in the midst of the long midwinter.

Here at St Peter’s we won’t be celebrating Thorrablot—though of course folks are welcome to try it at home. Instead we’ll be counting our blessings in other ways, for indeed we have much to celebrate in the few weeks left before Lent. In addition to our Candlemas vespers at the beginning of this month, we’ll be welcoming new brothers and sisters in Christ both at upcoming baptisms and at our New Members Sunday scheduled for the end of February. The 500th anniversary of the Reformation will continue to be our theme in Adult Education and at Pub Theology.

St Peter’s is growing in numerous ways: our Sunday School is growing, Confirmation Class is growing, even our depth of worship is growing as more people attend midweek vespers and the Holy Week Triduum. And our membership is growing as well, with new families transferring in from other congregations, new children coming for the first time to the Font of our shared Baptism, and new faces visiting on Sundays and at Church events. Christ is alive and moving amongst us, bringing warmth and cheer amidst the February frost!

So let us celebrate all the blessings we have, and all the unusual and unexpected ways that God comes to us today in Word and in Sacrament, in community and contemplation, both at home and at Church. There is new life here! Thanks be to God.