Make quality time for yourself and family a priority

  • Published
  • By Senior Master Sgt. Rita Houchin
  • 452nd AMW Chapel Superintendent

If you can believe it, we’re already more than half way through the first month of 2017!  Do you have a cool calendar to mark important events that will occur this year?  There are so many fun and entertaining calendars being sold these days, most of us don’t put much thought into how our modern calendar came about.

 

Turns out that those awesome looking aircraft calendars are based on the Gregorian calendar, which was created by Christopher Clavius, a Jesuit astronomer and introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.  So, why was Pope Gregory XIII so concerned about changing the calendar system in 1582 anyway?  According to the NASA Eclipse website, it was all about Easter.  The Julian calendar utilized a fixed date of March 21st for the equinox and as time passed Easter was arriving too early, before springtime.  For four centuries, scholars debated about Easter and the calendar.  With his new calculations, Clavius not only solved the problem of Easter arriving too early he developed a more accurate calendar.  Interestingly, in order to implement the new Gregorian calendar, 10 days were deleted from October in 1582.  Can you imagine, just deleting days?

 

Before the Gregorian calendar, there was the Julian calendar.  Devised by the astronomer Sosigenes and introduced by Julius Caesar in the year -45.  The Julian calendar came about to fix some problems with the Roman calendar, the biggest change involved inserting 90 days to better align the months with the seasons.  Also, the Julian calendar was the first calendar system to incorporate Leap Years.

 

Regardless of when or which calendar was used, they all served the very basic human need to organize time and mark important events.  Today, we all know by heart the most important dates in our lives.  Additionally, we have those various commitments that need annotating on our snazzy picture calendars so we don’t forget.  Then there are the calendars given to us and some people need an entire wall just so they can post their calendar collections.  There is the work calendar, children’s school calendars, the various sports activity calendars, the church calendar, etc.  As a Reservists, you have an additional calendar to keep track of and that is the UTA calendar.  Since the beginning of time, has anybody been as busy as you a modern day Air Force Reservist?  Honestly, it does not seem possible.

 

With so much activity happening in our lives today, especially the lives of Citizen Airmen, it is essential that you prioritize having quality time for yourself and for your family.  Mark days for this quality time on your nice wall calendar or your favorite smart phone app and keep those dates.  Please remember, you can talk to our Chaplains concerning anything, even about your calendar(s).

 

https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/calendars.html