Isaiah Langford - Rumi’s Spiral Timeline & the Liturgical Calendar - 3/28/2026

  When we were discussing Rumi’s poem “In Baghdad, Dreaming of Cairo; In Cairo, Dreaming of Baghdad,” we put up a theory to describe the primordial experience of time not as a linear path nor as a cycle with exact repetitions, but as a spiral that coils in on itself such that one both makes a journey which changes themselves and their perception and yet can feel the impact of recurrent events that sometimes even ripple outward. This notion of time presents itself to me in an obvious way within the Liturgical Calendar that high-church Christianity (Catholics, Lutherans, the Orthodox, Anglicans, etc.) follow. The year is divided into seasons, both of celebration (Christmas and Easter) and periods of waiting (Advent and Lent) that precede the rejoicing. What connects this to the spiral timeline is that the same seasons are repeated every Liturgical Year, and thus as the cycle repeats itself, one can once again experience the same events; and yet, each celebration is still distinct, for different specifications exist within each repetition, like the number of people that attend, what Scriptural readings are used, and the date or day of the week on which a specific holiday (“holy day”) is celebrated. But the Liturgical Seasons are even more deeply connected to the Life of Christ, for this serves as their center; Christmas is the celebration of his birth, and Easter the celebration of his resurrection. As one moves through the Liturgical Year, they enter anticipating his birth and eventually reach the climax of recalling his resurrection from the dead; all of these events call the participants to act in certain ways, and indeed at the Easter Vigil, those people who have been called to join the church enter with great rejoicing at the promise of the bodily resurrection for all the dead and the eternal glory of heaven for those who believe in Christ. Thus, by participating in the liturgical life of the church, one can experience the “ripple effects” of Christ’s life in its totality.