Reflection for Christmas Eve

Wooden carving of Mary and Jesus at Eastern Point Retreat House 

Throughout the season of advent this year I have noticed the contrast between the preparations for holiday festivities and the heaviness of our troubled world. This was in my heart when I read this poem written by Madeleine L’Engle back in 1973

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn -
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn -
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

This is the power of the Christmas story- That even amid our broken world, love enters in. Love takes the risk of birth. Sr. Anne Curtis reminds us that the Nativity story is about “The divine love of God entering the messiness, the painful, suffering, broken and yet beautiful world in which we find ourselves.”

Sometimes we get the impression that to truly celebrate Christmas we must be full of joy and wonder at every moment. If you find yourself having mixed feelings at Christmas, you are right in the midst of the mystery of the Christmas story.

This year as I feel the troubles of the world in my heart, in my body, I remember that that new life always enters the world through struggle and work, through the risk and pain and messiness of childbirth. The peaceful nativity scene comes later -- after the journey to Bethlehem, after Mary carries the child for 9 months, after she labors to bring him into the world. I feel like right now we are laboring to bring new life into the world, to bring love into the world.

In the Christian tradition, the birth of Jesus is God-self coming into the world to be with us, to feel as we do: the shock of cold outside the womb, taking a first breath, feeling with us what it is to live in our messy, breakable human bodies and hearts. Christmas reminds us that the sacred presence is here with us right now, that love is here with us right now. This is why we gather on Christmas eve, to simply notice how love is here with us, right now. 

And so we pause now, in the quiet we make together, as if we were a new mother holding love in our arms, holding the divine in our arms, in our hearts. Surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, amazed together that such a thing is possible,

Happy Holidays from Your Multi Faith Community

“Why do we celebrate Christmas?” my partner asked one year. We were newly married and I was studying at a Unitarian Unviersalist (UU) seminary out in California. We were preparing for our first Christmas all on our own. It was a good question. My partner was raised Catholic but does not identify as Christian, and it felt disingenuous to him to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Why did I celebrate Christmas? I was raised UU, and had always celebrated Christmas, gathering on Christmas Eve with candles and carols. But now I was in seminary, peering into the “why” underneath my beliefs and habits, trying to understand my faith tradition more deeply, creating new rituals and forms of worship with my classmates on a weekly basis.

I decided perhaps I celebrated the Solstice, which was a fact of nature and science, an inflection point in the wheel of the year. Our tree would be a solstice tree, I decided, because after all the yule tree tradition predates and was incorporated into the celebration of Christmas, as do many Christmas traditions, like wreaths, carols, gifts, candles. We were taught about that in my UU church. But the solstice itself was a school day, and though we had invited friends over for dinner, it didn’t really feel like a solstice celebration. “Perhaps we should go up onto the quad and have some kind of impromptu ritual?” I suggested. There were no takers. It didn’t feel fully authentic to me anyway. I’d only been to a handful of rituals celebrating the pagan sabbaths. I came to 2 conclusions- first, I decided wanted to start paying attention to the 8 pagan sabbaths of the solar year. second, I realized how hard it is to fight Cultural hegemony. (which is a fancy way of saying some ideas and customs in our culture just seem normal, and are reinforced in subtle and not so subtle ways). Schools, banks and government offices are closed on Christmas Day. It seems easy and normal for Americans to celebrate Christmas, you already have the day off, and the commercial and cultural expressions of the holiday are everywhere in our culture since before Halloween- that’s cultural hegemony. It takes a lot of effort and thought to do something different, like you are swimming upstream.

Hanukkah starts tonight at sundown. It commemorates a historic moment when a small band of fighters, the Maccabees, stood up against the religious persecution by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who outlawed Jewish religious practice, and desecrated the Jewish temple in intentional acts of religious persecution. After the battle, the Jewish priests needed to rededicate the temple. Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of the single little bottle of holy oil that lasted 8 days, long enough for newly blessed oil to be made so that the light could once again burn continuously in observance of Jewish Law.

The Talmud, the central Jewish book of rabbinic teachings, tells us about the way the candles should be lit over the 8 days, and also that “The Menorah should be placed where it is visible from outside the house in order to proclaim the miracle of Hanukkah to all passers-by–l’farsumei nisah (O.H. 671:5, B. Shab. 24a).”[i] On a recent podcast[ii], Rachel Goldberg- Polin, a teacher of Jewish studies, who became an activist when her son was abducted by Hamas in the October 7 attacks, introduced me to the idea of Pirsumei Nisa (publicizing the miracle) which is why Jewish law calls for lighting the eight candles in a window or doorway where others can see. She explained that Hanukkah is like Jewish Pride week - “we’re here, we’re Jews, get used to it” It is, she said a “PDA about our Jewishness.” She once told a non-Jewish neighbor who lived across the street. “you actually get to participate in us fulfilling our mitzvah ... by you seeing them we are performing our obligation of Pirsumei Nissa, of publicizing the miracle." 

I love that even though I am not Jewish, and don’t know how to say the prayers over the Hanukkah lights, I can be the one who sees, who witnesses the lights.

Among Unitarian Universalists, some are Jewish, some are Christian, some are Muslim, some are Buddhist, some are Pagan, some, like me, were born and raised in this faith, or became UU later in life as their primary religious tradition. We are multi-religious communities, even when we are all UUs.

When I first became the minister of the Athens congregation, we celebrated our traditional candlelight service on December 23, and we told stories and lit candles for a variety of religious observances, Advent, Hanukkah, solstice, Kwanza. It was a beautiful message about our value of plurality, but it made me a little uncomfortable to lead an observance from a tradition that was not my own.

We were learning, in our multiculturalism training, that UUs tend to err on emphasizing how all religions are similar, and missing some of the important differences. There is a benefit to noticing how we are all the same, how we all experience the dark of winter, and notice how darkness and light, especially candle light are part of these holiday traditions. This is a great first step for folks who are just learning about religious difference, or who may be afraid of folks who are different from them, to notice our common humanity. But when we want to go a bit farther on the journey of being truly multi-cultural, it’s important to notice that there are differences that make a difference. In Judaism it matters when you light the candles. To some Jewish folks it’s a micro-aggression to conflate Christmas and Hanukkah.

The congregation had a great conversation about what was important to us about the Candle light service, and about Christmas Eve. We decided we wanted to let each holiday be it’s own thing. We would talk about Hanukkah on Hanukkah, we would notice the Solstice on the Solstice. We would let our Christmas eve celebration (which still moves around a bit and this year is on the 23 and 24) include the traditional Christmas stories and carols, and if that’s too much Jesus for those of us who are not Christian, that’s okay.

There’s a phrase “not about us without us” which is a good touchstone for multi-cultural and multi- faith situations. We try to let the Jewish members of our community take the lead on Hanukkah. We don’t try to do a big pagan circle on the solstice (which we have done some years) if we don’t have any members who practice in those traditions. We don’t traditionally light the Kinara on Kwanza, since we haven’t had any members who celebrate that tradition in recent years. We stopped lighting the advent wreath for the same reason. But if you are listening to this right now saying, wait, I love advent, I light the advent wreath at home! or if you light the Kinara and wish you could share that with your church community, please come talk to me, we want to include your traditions here in this multi-religious community.

We UUS value plurality, but sometimes it’s hard to know how to put that into practice. These days I tend to lean towards valuing the differences of the real people who gather together on Sunday and shifting our practices to include those who will join us for the first time in the future. We value plurality in the larger community too, knowing we are called to advocate for the freedom of all to be who they are, but we are just too small and our lives are just too short to know every culture, every religion, every eco system deeply. So we start by noticing and honoring the plurality right here, in the space we share.

If you go to another UU church on Christmas Eve, you may see something totally different. We do it this way not because it’s the one right way, but because we thought about it, we wrestled with it, and this seems to work for now.

Goldberg-Polin mentioned that the time of the origin of Hanukkah was a time when some Jewish people observed the Jewish law very strictly, others had let go of the law and become assimilated, and others, as she said “have a foot in both worlds”. She added “this should sound extremely familiar today. She said “Most of us are not completely assimilated Hellenists, most of us are struggling in the middle. And when we say the word struggle.. actually struggling means you’re grappling your, digesting, your thinking, you are being alive." The podcast host Dan Senor continued  "You are engaged, you are engaged in the debates, in the contents in the dilemmas" Goldberg-Polin continued "and trying to not go to either extreme, and how do we do it?...We have to each say to ourselves...where do we draw the line?... If we're not sure who we are and what we stand for, figure it out" 

We were talking the other day at our Discover UU class about what we believe, and someone said wisely “this is not an easy faith.” There was a nodding of heads. We don’t have a catechism to memorize, or laws to observe. We have a rich history and tradition, we have values we try to live out in the world and we have a covenant of how we will be together. But when it comes to how to celebrate the winter holidays, each of us is invited into that struggling, that grappling. What does it mean to you to observe the season? What does it mean to us as a multi-religious community?

The great thing about traditions, rituals, is that even as they provide continuity year to year, generation to generation, each year they touch us in a different way, and each year they speak to the unique moment in history.

Today we share the wisdom of Hanukkah, and whether or not we are Jewish, we notice how that wisdom speaks to us. Next week we will celebrate the Solstice, the turning point of the year, inviting each of us to notice the turning of the season, grounding ourselves the cycles of nature. Then we will gather after dark for our candle light service, whether or not we are Christian, to share in the wisdom and mystery of the nativity. Because we value plurality, we will hopefully witness things that are new to us, that challenge us, and things that ground us in our own traditions, our own history and beliefs. I invite you, to take it all in, to let it touch you wherever your spirit needs to be touched, and if you ever find yourself asking “who do we do it this way?” know you are part of a grand UU tradition of asking that very same question. I invite you to struggle, to grapple, to digest, to think, to engage, to be both grounded and enlarged by the wisdom of the season. 

Notes:
[i] https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/the-laws-of-hanukkah/
[ii] https://callmeback.simplecast.com/episodes/toga-or-torah-with-rachel-goldberg-polin-sEbEt7Gi “call me back” Toga or Torah - with Rachel Goldberg-Polin

Wintering

This summer I found a new trail, not far from my house, that I have been exploring. As summer changed to fall, I was thrilled to encounter the little red squirrels who move so fast, the family of deer that often crossed my path, the glowing yellows and then orange as the trees changed color, and then one day the surprising beauty of a wood bare of all leaves, and the trails coated with a brilliant orange carpet. On a recent visit I encountered a young male deer with beautiful 2 point horns, fluffy at the base. But last time I went hiking there it was cold, and grey, and all the critters were quiet. It felt like being the last one at a party when everyone else had gone to bed. I drove home in the early darkness through grumpy rush hour traffic, and wondered whether I’d be able to keep up those weekly hikes I so looked forward to in winter months.

I’ll be honest with you -- I have skipped several opportunities to go walking on the rhythm I had settled into- too cold in the morning before the sun is fully up, and dark before the work day is over. I’m having trouble transitioning to winter. Part of the reason I’m struggling is because I just can’t make myself follow those routines and goals that were a delight to follow in the summer and into the fall. Wednesday morning, after that big snowstorm that dumped 6 inches on Ithaca, I bundled up in my warmest coat, and took the dogs out for their early morning walk in 20 degree weather over sidewalks covered in that treacherous lumpy ice that forms when snow has melted and refrozen. The dogs got to the end of the block and then started limping and shivering, and I carried them back to the house. I took their coats off, dried their little feet, But I, bundled in my big sleeping bag of a coat and warm boots, wanted more. I headed back out for a winter walk in my downtown neighborhood. There was something enlivening about being out in the snow. The light reflecting from below, even as the sun has barely made it over the hills and was shining only on the top branches of the trees. Everything was still frosted with show, all the tree branches and roofs. Even the songbirds and squirrels seemed to be waiting out the cold snap, but I spotted ducks sleeping on the not yet frozen creek. The walk was a much needed reminder that I DO like walking in winter, it’s just different.

It's like each year at this time I learn all over again how to winter. I slowly remember that we know how to do this, that we and the other beings with which we share our ecosystem know how to do this, and have done it for generations. Gradually I remember what it is that brings us comfort and beauty in this season. Each year I discover the comfort of my super warm coat, and my cozy boots. I remember the pile of books I was planning to read all summer while I was too busy enjoying the sun, and discover anew the joy of a book in my comfy chair, my puffy winter blanket, and a mug of hot tea by my side.

I wonder, what are the things you enjoy most in winter, that bring you comfort or delight? 

As we transition to winter, the whole eco system here in the northeast changes dramatically in ways that have required significant adaptation from pretty much every plant and animal who lives here. We have seen the trees preparing for winter all fall, the squirrels hiding their walnuts all over my backyard. Even the ducks, who seem to nap comfortably on the near frozen stream fluff up their feathers to make their own super warm coat. Their feet are specially designed to withstand cold. Not everyone can survive a winter on our latitude, and many beings migrate to a more conducive climate. The many beings who stay here slow down, have some kind of dormancy or hibernation. They remember year to year, generation to generation how to winter.

Like the duck who is born with special feet to withstand the cold waters of winter, we too have our own adaptations that not only help us survive the winter, We too know in our DNA how to winter. [i] Our circulatory system knows to shrink our veins, and to protect our core when we get cold. We have a special kind of brown fat that helps you stay warm when it gets cold. [ii] Like the ducks and bears, our bodies participate in the metamorphosis of winter, without our conscious attention. 

Just as beavers spend most of winter in the lodge they spent the whole summer building. (They don’t hibernate, but they do spend most of the winter indoors with their family, and often with their muskrat neighbors sharing warmth.[iii]) We too tend to spend more time indoors, and our many traditions, habits and customs help us remember how to winter. Perhaps when we are decking the halls, this is just a fancy human way of preparing our lodge, our den for the quieter indoor season. We deck the halls with the beautiful evergreens that bring their color to the white and grey landscape, from Christmas trees and wreaths, to the green and red holly berries that are just coming into fullness at this time of year. I remember the Christmas of 2020 was the most epic Christmas decorating year ever, an effort to lift our spirits in difficult times.

I think if you scratch the surface of most holiday customs, you will find they are built on a wisdom that helps us survive the winter, help us “flourish in lean times.”[iv]

The Advent tradition in Christianity focuses on an inner preparation, reminding us that this is a good season for contemplation.

Stories of mystical stars remind us that as winter trees show their beautiful limbs against the sky, with leaves now turning into mulch around their feet, there is more sky to see, and more hours to enjoy the stars and the moon.

Our holiday gatherings and holiday cards remind us of the importance of reaching out and connecting, remembering especially those who may be lonely, or those who may need help with food insecurity, or houselessness, or just a bit of holiday cheer.

Even school procedures for closing on snow days remind us that some winter days it’s really just best to stay out of your car, but may be a perfect day to put on your snow pants and go sled or make snow angels or snow forts. I love walking through city streets empty of cars feeling the excitement of and wonder of a snow storm.

In oral traditions, there are special stories only told in winter, when we have more hours of that dark dreamtime to share stories, especially epic sagas that need a long winter night for telling.

I’m not saying winter is easy. Anyone who shoveled their sidewalk this past week knows that. Anyone who has one of these winter colds going around knows that. Anyone who struggles with the long nights and grey days which leave so many feeling blue knows that. How much harder for those of us who don’t have a dependable warm place to stay, or sources of food. An important reminds that winter is not something we do alone, but must do in community for all to make it through. Even the beavers know that.

Winter is not an absence of summer, it provides important balance for our eco-systems, and for our spirits. As Author Katherine May writes in her book Wintering: “Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a spare beauty and even the pavements sparkle.”

Winter slows us down, whether we like it or not. Sometimes the plans we made in the light and heat of a September day need to be changed when the wisdom of winter begins to settle in. The response of my body to winter is not something I want to fight, but something I try to notice and allow. May writes, “It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order.”

In our productivity-oriented culture, having a season that slows us down can be an important balance. In this congregation I generally don’t plan any extra business meetings or classes in December, not only because preparing for the holidays takes time, but also because our bodies move at a different pace when it is cold and dark. If you are like me, all the busyness of the fall has worn me out, and like the bulbs I moved to my basement to give them a couple of months rest so they can bloom again in spring, we cannot bloom in spring without the restorative rest of winter.

Sometimes that quiet, that rest comes unbidden -- when the roads are icy, the internet goes out, we stay home with a cold to keep from infecting our community. But most of the time “wintering” benefits from our conscious attention. In this time of electric lights and 24 hour grocery stores that sell strawberries and asparagus in every season, we could choose to ignore winter, to keep our schedule, our habits, our diets unchanging season to season. So setting an intention to notice winter, to listen to the natural cadence of our body and our ecosystem is a choice that helps us benefit from the wisdom of nature’s rhythms.

Even the birds that brave the snow to come eat at my feeder flit less, sing less, sit still like a statue puffed up in their down coats. They show up to sit in a patch of sun much later in the morning.

Author Sidney Eileen [v] who describes themselves as an “animistic, polytheist witch” notes “Hibernating animals nestle down in their shelters to sleep out the winter, often giving birth during those lean months.  The sanctity of darkness provides a nurturing place where life can shelter from inclement weather, and be fully prepared to burst forth when conditions are more favorable.”

This is a powerful image to me, that even in the still, cold winter, new life is entering the world, in the “sanctity of darkness.” We need the protective darkness of the womb, of den and cave. Our spirits need a retreat from noise and crowds, protection from the storm, the privacy and intimacy of those who shelter with us.

We need winter.

As it is with our bodies, so it is in the seasons of our souls. We long to be summer people all the time- full of abundant life growing so thickly it overgrows our lawns, our gardens, our hiking paths. Winter is a necessary reset, paring us down, allowing the new growth of a fresh spring. The same wisdom that helps us survive the cold, quiet season of our ecosystems, can help us with the winter seasons of our soul. Our UU faith honors as one of our sources “Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.” We find wisdom not only in our human stories and traditions of the season, but in the cycles of life. When we are in seasons of grief, of fear or discouragement, of burn out, we probably don’t have the energy, the drive we have during those sunny seasons where joy and hope are easy. These dark seasons of the soul are a natural part of the cycle of life, and though we wouldn’t choose them, we have an inner wisdom for how to navigate them, and not just our personal wisdom, but the wisdom of community, of our wisdom traditions. Just as we have special alchemy built into our DNA for surviving winter and receiving the gifts of this cold dark season, so our spirits have the power to metamorphosize, and like the critters who birth their young in the dark shelter of winter. But for the metamorphosis to happen, we may we need quiet, time apart, the “sanctity of darkness” for our hearts and spirits to heal and grow. I suspect most of us in this sanctuary have lived through hard times, and you know that those times require a different pace, a different rhythm. And I bet if you think back, you will notice that those hard times transformed us into the people we are today.

There will be time enough to talk about maple syrup, and daffodils, and new lambs emerging just as grass to feed them emerges. But here at the start of winter, let us take this time to simply notice how it is with us, body and spirit, to witness this change of season, to allow the beauty and wisdom of winter to teach and nourish us. Just notice what comfort, what beauty, what wisdom the season of resonates with your spirit, notice what gifts you are able to receive this year in the beauty and challenge of wintering.


Notes:

[i] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/19673/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-are-the-chances/202302/seasonality-in-human-behavior
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK232852/

[ii] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/24015-brown-fat

[iii] https://www.vitalground.org/winter-wildlife-beavers/

[iv] As Katherine May wrote in Wintering: “the full glory of natures’ flourishing in lean times.”

[v] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/agora/author/sidney/