The subject of hope came up recently as I talked with an old friend, who prefers to go by the name Wallowitz. I was lamenting that February was around the corner and I am not a fan.

Almost every month on the calendar has some redeeming quality or element to it. January has New Years. The holiday that celebrates expensive but never to be used gym memberships. March has the first day of spring and, for sports lovers like me, March Madness. Even April’s showers have the redemptive quality of bringing May’s flowers! June is filled with blushing brides. July marks the height of patriotism. August brings family vacations for many. In September we go back to school. October has fall colors. In November we carve the turkey. And there’s probably a holiday in December but I’m blanking on the name… all I know is, it’s the most wonderful time of the year.

But February. Poor February is by far my least favorite month. Where I live, in the upper Midwest, February is the height of winter. While other places have weather that is described as “dry heat”, or a “damp chill”, February in Michigan has but one property: cold. You might try to say there’s a second property, gray, but in reality it’s not even gray. It’s a colorless palette of cold.

I once traveled from Detroit’s Metro airport to LAX in the middle of February. When I got off the plane in Los Angeles it was just like that moment in the Wizard of Oz when the movie goes from black and white to color.

While other places have weather that is described as “dry heat”, or a “damp chill”, February in Michigan has but one property: cold.

For me, February has always appeared to be a most useless month. The only thing I’ve liked about it over the years is that it has the fewest days, 28.

As you can see, I’ve grown pretty cynical over the years about this. But Wallowitz has recently encouraged me to take another look at February.

“Yes, it is cold,” Wallowitz said. “And it’s hard. And colorless… But it does have Valentines Day.”

Whoa. The rare fair point! How did that happen? How did the one holiday that celebrates love and romance and all things red end up in February?

At Wallowitz’s encouragement I looked more deeply into this. I found that in the third century, the Romans had a rather awful feast called Lupercalia, “celebrated” between February 13 – 15. I’ll spare you the terrible details of the rituals. Suffice to say, they incorporated some rather primitive (even by 3rd century standards) techniques that were designed to promote fertility.

However, as time went on the traditions evolved into somewhat more tame versions. Ultimately Chaucer and then Shakespeare romanticized these in their works and by the time it all got to the New World people were making handmade paper cards as tokens of their love. In the year 1913, the good folks at Hallmark took over from there and the rest, as they say, is history.

I went back to Wallowitz to give him the good news.

“I knew you’d change your mind,” he said. “What happened to Valentine’s Day was that love entered into it. It wasn’t until God’s love redeemed it, that it became worthwhile.”

“I’m feeling better about things,” I told him. But I’m still not a big fan.

“You’re forgetting about Groundhog Day,” he said.

“I actually wasn’t,” I replied smugly. “It’s a silly ceremony in Punxsutawney,Pennsylvania featuring a prognosticating rodent called Phil!”

“It’s much more than that,” Wallowitz assured me. “You’re missing it. This is an entire community who, once a year, come out of their houses to stand together in the snow to express their hope. They’re not there to idolize the groundhog. They come to show their hope that spring is near. It’s not a party. It’s a prayer. It’s an entire community prayer on one cold morning every year.”

I was taken aback for a moment. My friend Wallowitz is not known for his sentimental musings about such matters. Most days you can find him elbows deep in chicken wings and SportsCenter. But he was starting to win me over. Then he said it.

“There’s great hope in the month of February. You just have to be willing to see it.”

Perfect. It isn’t until this world focuses on love, hope and God Himself, that redemption can happen. Even for February.