The extra work, the gatherings every weekend, the multiple services at church, the writing and rewriting of Advent Liturgies, the social events, the church events, the shopping, the weather turning, the winter maintenance and the people, and the wider church commitments, personnel and personal issues; it is all good and mostly a joy. But why does there have to be so much? That’s not fair really there is so much because I have said ‘yes’ so many times.
It is the Holiday press of activity compounded by other activities that don’t let up at holiday time. The holiday press is that ‘business’ that we feel, that pressure to get out shopping and to get to all the parties that one is invited to and make the ones being hosted a warm and welcoming experience. It is that sense of obligation or desire, whichever is stronger in your family, to be with family to visit and spend meaningful time. It is that dreaded feeling when one feels like they have to go visit this family member or that one that really is not a pleasant experience.
The Holiday Press is also that sense of loneliness when thinking of loved ones who can no longer share the holiday for whatever reason, and there are many, from death to dementia, from altercations to absences, and from empty hearts to empty nests; many people are not with the ones they wish they were with.
All of it seems to pile up.
The holidays are the worst times and the best times. The Christmas after my wife died I was singing with the choir preparing for a Christmas Cantata and every week I had to sing about the “hap-hap-happiest time of the year.” It wasn’t. Christmas was her favorite holiday and it was empty.
We join with friends, we watch the movies, we look at the picture perfect scenes in Normal Rockwell scenes and Currier and Ives cards and imagine ourselves in them and sometimes the sadness just cannot be overcome. The holiday season has the highest rates of recurrence of alcoholism and suicide. Calls to therapists increase dramatically. Doctors prescribe more anti-anxiety drugs and we all see it all around us. The demands for the best gifts, for more and better technology, for just the right toy or the one that is in the highest demand, that one that ‘everyone’ is buying; are all reaching miserable proportions.
Take a minute, or two. Breathe in the essence of the sacred that fills the air. Breathe in the calm that is there only when we stop to look for it. Breathe in the spirit of all that is good and right and compassionate. Breathe it in deep because whether the 25th of December was really Jesus’ birthday or not does not matter. Whether one believes that Jesus was God, or that he revealed what we imagine God to be; does not matter. Whether this Thanksgiving Day you say thanks ‘to’ God or live as a being grateful for all that is; does not matter.
What matters, honestly, is that we are all sisters and brothers, human being seeking to live at peace in a world that knows little peace right now.
Feed a friend. Hug your child. Buy someone a dinner. Call a friend you haven’t seen. Let go of the stress. Cry. Laugh. Do what you need to do to release yourself from the next urge to think a negative thought. Face your fears, breathe deep, and treat another person with respect. Life is good. Reach out to someone you know needs a kind word and in doing a kind deed for another you change the world for the better.
Thank you.
