The Gift of Rhythm: Why the Christian Calendar Matters
The Christian calendar is probably not something most of us think about all that much, except when it brings us around to Christmas or Easter again. And yet, it quietly shapes so much of our worship and rhythm.
But beyond its liturgical role, there’s something profoundly human about the way this calendar works. Neuroscience, of all things, can help us understand why.
The Lure and the Cost of Novelty
Novelty is a drug. Literally.
New and surprising experiences trigger dopamine in our brains, lighting up regions like the hippocampus and amygdala, the places where memory and emotion meet. It’s why we remember surprising moments, and why as preachers we work to make sermons interesting or unexpected.
But constantly chasing novelty is exhausting. Something can only be the “best” once. After that, it has to be bigger, better, faster, louder—more outrageous just to create the same spark.
We see this not only in entertainment but in the darker corners of human experience too. Addiction researchers, for example, note how online pornography rewires the brain, especially for men, to associate intimacy with novelty. And that’s something no real, long-term relationship could ever compete with.
The truth is, you don’t need to be a fundamentalist to know that what you expose yourself to shapes you. And that goes for church as well. If we’re always chasing a newer, better, more emotionally charged encounter with God, eventually not even God will be able to live up to the expectation we’ve built.
Nostalgia and the Sacred Power of Return
What’s fascinating, and maybe not surprising, is that the Christian tradition has always known this.
Because along with novelty, there’s another deeply powerful human experience that triggers similar neurochemical experiences, but this time with a little oxytocin mixed in.
Now, I’m not a neuroscientist (and yes, any reading right now are probably cringing at my oversimplifications), but I came across a 2022 article in the Journal of Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience that explored the neural model of nostalgia.
It demonstrated that returning to positive memories activates the same brain regions as novelty, only now they’re directed toward self-reflection, emotional regulation, and meaning-making.
In other words, rhythm and repetition, those intentional returns to the familiar, don’t just comfort us. They anchor us.
The Wisdom of the Church’s Seasons
That’s why the Christian calendar is such a gift.
It’s not just about marking time. It’s about shaping our journey.
At Commons, every year we move from Advent into Christmastide. Then catch our breath in Ordinary Time before descending back into Lent, and Eastertide. In the spring we return to Ordinary Time and begin to slow down as we reach the summer. We breathe out. Rest. Preparing to inhale again as we move toward September and what we call “Launch.” (Launch is our own made-up holiday where we kick off the new ministry cycle). But these annual rhythms helps us settle into the patterns that carry us toward Advent and Christmas, through Lent and Holy Week, and into the resurrection joy of Easter all over again.
Coming Home Again and Again
That rhythm, that repetition, even the journal we create for our community to hold each year as an artifact of our journey through these seasons, it reminds us that we’ve been here before.
And that’s a good thing.
In a world that feels less stable every week, the familiar rhythm of the Christian calendar, carried in our community’s seasons, offers a kind of stability that’s not rigid but grounding.
It says, I know this. I’ve been here before. And it was good.
Because sometimes a little nostalgia is better than novelty.
