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Sacred Calendars and Holidays Define Us — by Deborah Levine

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Religious diversity and holidays are challenging regardless of the time of year with deeply held beliefs regarding food, sacred texts, and worship traditions. Yet, there is no season like the end of the year for demonstrating cultural differences linked to religion. The differences can be glaring, giving rise to culture clashes and political controversies. It’s astonishing that there was ever a planetary-wide agreement on a calendar that named the months, determined their length and decreed when one year ends and the next begins. How did that calendar happen and can we capture the global mindset that created it for today’s “Holiday Season”?

Our secular calendar originated in the Catholic Church under Pope Gregory in 1582. Not accepted around the globe until almost a century later, today’s calendar is solar, based on the sun, in contrast to agricultural-based liturgical calendars with a strong lunar element. The liturgical calendars have a 28-day month based on the moon and varying number of months to account for what we call the leap year.

The vitality of these religious calendars, designed by relatively isolated cultures is ongoing. Sacred times are emotional times. We can’t see or touch time, but we organize time according to our most deeply-held beliefs. Our religious calendars have holy days, feast days, fast days, commemorations, celebrations and memorials that are an integral part of our spiritual lives.

The Diversity Challenge

Not until 1870, almost a century after American independence, did Congress declare Christmas as a national holiday. What happens with Christmas today as we experience increased religious diversity and increased secularization of Christmas as a retail bonanza? Many devout Christmas observers steep themselves in the religious environment. All-or-nothing efforts are often clumsy, or offensive.

While efforts to remove all traces of the holiday from public view is compared to de-nuding our culture, efforts to include multiple holidays in the December holiday season border on the impossible. Given the different liturgical calendars, many holidays do not regularly fall close to Christmas. The Jewish holiday of Chanukah is often linked to Christmas in the name of religious diversity. Unfortunately, the results is awkwardly wishing Jewish people a Happy Chanukah when it’s been over for days, or even weeks.

Holiday Challenges in the Workplace

Companies need to reconsider their policies if holidays result in negative side effects.

  • Employee complaints about December events decrease team productivity for months.
  • Employees prefer to work for your competition if required to attend company meetings and training on their sacred holidays.
  • Customers are lost when sales calls are inadvertently made on a client’s holy day.

Adopt inclusive strategies for navigating holidays

  • Give managers, salespeople and HR easy access to multicultural calendars.
  • Include information about holidays in company newsletters.
  • Involve representatives from different faiths and cultures in creating that information.

Accommodate when possible

  • Don’t require attendance at holiday parties.
  • Provide flexible options for holiday observances, especially food.
  • Include multicultural calendars in diversity training courses

Plan ahead

By the time December rolls around, emotions are too high to navigate well. Next year, take more time for religious groups to negotiate holidays when emotions are not as intense. Be prepared to negotiate difficult issues, regardless of the timing. Alternate universes do not march together without great effort.

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