Penultimate November

You will remember this verse or the first few lines of it, from your school days.

Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have thirty-one, excepting February alone, and that has twenty-eight days clear and twenty-nine in each leap year.

November is the eleventh and penultimate (meaning next to last) month of the year, the last of four months to have only 30 days and the last of five months to have less than 31 days.

November kept its name (from the Latin novem, meaning nine, even after the Romans added January and February to the Roman calendar.

November signals early spring to the southern hemisphere, but in the north it is the last of fall.

Topsy-Turvey you might say, but isn’t that how we operate in a man-made society?

For some time after the French Revolution, a new calendar was published to remove religious significance. You see, the old one was printed with every day denoted as some kind of saint or royalty day. The revolutionary calendar was designated with names like trees, roots and flowers.

No matter what people try to change, some things are always the same. 

This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:24)

But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. (2 Peter 3:8)