Make Light of It
Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
December 4, 2022
Rev. Craig M. Nowak
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year.”, according to a popular song of the season. And it sure seemed that way when I was kid. Yet I’ve noticed that the older I get, the less I encounter people who are or get excited about what that same song calls, “The hap-happiest season of all.”
Right about now the mere mention of Christmas in particular is often met with groans rather than holiday greetings, except from the man at the Christmas tree farm you just handed $65. to for a tree. Indeed, the stress of the season is worn on many a face as email and snail mail mailboxes fill with notifications of holiday sales and catalogues all making sure we’re aware how little time we have left to shop and save. Then there’s the arrival by mail, phone, or text of invitations to various gatherings and the awkward exercise of sorting and choosing among the ones you want to go and the ones you “should” go to and the ever present risk of offending someone with your choice. And if you’re among those who host a holiday gathering or family dinner, well, support groups have been founded for lesser traumas.
At the same time there’s a whole other group of people whose stress around the holidays is of an entirely different variety. For some it is not the anxiety of having to choose between too many invites, but the loneliness of having none to choose from. For others the excess of the season can be an especially painful reminder of one’s lack of disposable income or even deficit of material needs. And those of other faiths must more or less put up with Christmas in their face for a good 4- 6 weeks not to mention those obnoxious television and radio personalities ranting about an alleged “war on Christmas” every year.
“The most wonderful time of the year?”
How about the weirdest time of the year?
I mean, if there wasn’t something off, if not downright weird, about this time of year, we wouldn’t have readings like Jane Rzepka’s to read in church. And there wouldn’t be all those movies aired every year at this time where the story centers on holiday mishaps, misfortune, and family strife. This is indeed a weird time of the year.
Now, with all that I’ve said about this season one might conclude that I’ve joined the chorus of those who groan and bear the holidays as best I can.
But you’d be wrong.
I do think this is the weirdest time of year. Lord knows I’ve experienced many a Christmas season that has felt more like an extreme sport or survivalist training than a joyous holiday. But I also happen to think it is the most wonderful, as in wonder-filled, time of the year too.
Twinkling lights, that special hush of falling snow, and certain music admittedly helps create conditions that inspire wonder, for which the season, at least in northern climates, is known and depicted in legend and lore, past and present.
But the wonder-filled part of it all, to me, is that we keep trying.
We know the season isn’t what it was intended to be. And I could go on and on and on about how secularism and commercialization has brought us to a corrupted state where parents are egged on to buy their children’s love with this season’s “must have” gift and a popular clothing brand hocks underwear by showing men dancing in boxer shorts to the tune of jingle… bells. But there are plenty of others who have and can make that point just as well, if not better, than I. I personally recommend the 1965 animated television special, “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!” if that’s the kind of homily you want or need.
No, rather than belaboring or bemoaning the impact of secularism and commercialization on the season, I wish to focus on the fact the we keep returning to this season, hoping for more, which often means less….less pressure, less perfectionism, and less attention given to all those things Jane Rzepka would call, “zip codes”.
And we do try.
Some of us turn to various means of “simplifying” the holidays, drawing on advice from bloggers and self-help gurus, not to mention Youtube videos demonstrating how to cook your roast, ham, turkey or goose much faster, juicier, tastier, etc. etc. Yet somehow the cycle of stress repeats and our hopes are dashed yet again. And while some, having thus lost hope, decide to boycott the holiday season altogether, there is another option.
I don’t think it’s an accident that Jane Rzepka’s Advent reflection has us imagining skydiving into the holiday season saved from certain doom by a correction to the instructions. Her point is clear: If we want the season to be different we have to approach it differently, radically differently. An approach as radical as changing from shouting zip codes to pulling the rip cord is for a skydiver plunging toward earth. And this is why all the well intentioned advice on simplifying the holidays, keeping your cool, making your own wrapping paper, or getting that meal prep time down often flops in one way or another. They’re all invested in the same assumption about what matters: looking good, appeasing everyone, being efficient. In other words they just offer alternative ways to shout zip codes. If we can get a handle on how to properly shout our zips codes, so the logic goes, then we’ll have time to devote to our rip cords.
Meanwhile…splat!
“Perhaps we should look to our rip cords”, writes Rzepka, reminding us we have it backwards. Echoing the wisdom of ages past, she advises, attend first to what matters and all the rest will find its appropriate place.
And if we ever wonder what’s important, we only need remember that this “holiday season” is a season of miracles professed through stories of light:
The light of the temple lamp that inspired Hanukah.
The light of the star that announced the birth of Jesus.
And the light of the sun celebrated at the winter solstice.
Now, miracles don’t get much respect anymore, in part because we tend to get hung up on the mechanics of miracles. What are they, how do they work, are they real, and so forth. But that’s not a helpful approach if they are to be useful. Imagine hurtling toward earth and asking the same about your rip cord before availing yourself of it?
Again, splat!
I’ll let in on a little secret about miracles. They have nothing to do with belief. And everything to do with faith.
Forget the mechanics of miracles and instead consider this assertion from the philosopher and atheist George Santayana, “The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.”
The miracle in a world that is mortal, tormented, confused, and deluded forever, isn’t the intervention of a deity, but the presence of beauty, love, courage, and laughter. These are the flickers, the sparks, the rays, the “important notice” all those ancient stories of the season try to turn our attention toward.
The miracle of Hanukah isn’t that one day’s oil lasted eight, its that the lamp was lit at all without knowing how long it would last. That’s not belief, that’s taking a chance, a risk, a leap of faith. And haven’t we all, in some way, experienced or been inspired by that miracle of light in our lives?
Likewise, the miracle of Christmas has nothing to do with the imaginative nature of Jesus’ conception but rather how, love, as fragile as a child, can grow, sever allegiance with the dominant ways of world and blossom into a deeper, fuller, more compassionate way of life. And don’t each of us know someone or of someone who almost without fail responds benevolently to the human condition. One whose own light has perhaps relighted with flame within us and inspired us to strive toward the same?
And while the miracle of the solstice is and remains for some the astronomical event that science has nonetheless figured out and explained, another miracle it points to is the myriad ways in which life, including human life, is connected and depends on one another, and that we are a part of a larger rhythm of life outside of which we would cease to exist. And isn’t one of the ways learn about and come to know ourselves through the ever changing light of our relationships with others?
These stories have served humanity for centuries for a reason and its not, as is often supposed, because people back then were especially naive or they needed to explain things science hadn’t yet figured out. They speak to something humans increasingly don’t like or don’t know how to talk about anymore: our deepest spiritual needs and concerns.
And they still speak to us, if we’d only let them.
So, if the holiday season’s got you stressed…make light of it.
Which is to say, reacquaint yourself with stories of the season, those stories of light, and open your mind to the real miracles behind the tired headlines hyping supernatural oil and virgin births.
Make light of this season.
Stop shouting zip codes a hundred different ways and look to your rip cords.
And if, by chance you’re ever unsure which is which, let Boris Novak’s words, our second reading, offer some guidance :
Between two words, choose the quieter one.
Between word and silence, choose listening.
Between two books, choose the dustier one.
Between the earth and the sky, choose a bird.
Between two animals, choose the one who needs you more.
Between two children, choose both.
Between the lesser and the bigger evil, choose neither.
Between hope and despair, choose hope: it will be harder to bear.
Hope, one of the most defining qualities of the holiday season, will always be harder to bear because hope requires us to exercise our spiritual muscle in the face of uncertainty.
And like any muscle that doesn’t get a lot of use, it takes time to strengthen and tone. Indeed, the groan that often greets the season just might be a sign of atrophy, a wasting away of our spiritual muscle weakened by despair dressed up as butter, 50 % off sales, and party shoes…zips codes being shouted by people in free fall.
Let us then greet this season anew and make light of it.
Make light of it like our lives depend on it.
Because they do.
Amen and Blessed Be
Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
December 4, 2022
Rev. Craig M. Nowak
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year.”, according to a popular song of the season. And it sure seemed that way when I was kid. Yet I’ve noticed that the older I get, the less I encounter people who are or get excited about what that same song calls, “The hap-happiest season of all.”
Right about now the mere mention of Christmas in particular is often met with groans rather than holiday greetings, except from the man at the Christmas tree farm you just handed $65. to for a tree. Indeed, the stress of the season is worn on many a face as email and snail mail mailboxes fill with notifications of holiday sales and catalogues all making sure we’re aware how little time we have left to shop and save. Then there’s the arrival by mail, phone, or text of invitations to various gatherings and the awkward exercise of sorting and choosing among the ones you want to go and the ones you “should” go to and the ever present risk of offending someone with your choice. And if you’re among those who host a holiday gathering or family dinner, well, support groups have been founded for lesser traumas.
At the same time there’s a whole other group of people whose stress around the holidays is of an entirely different variety. For some it is not the anxiety of having to choose between too many invites, but the loneliness of having none to choose from. For others the excess of the season can be an especially painful reminder of one’s lack of disposable income or even deficit of material needs. And those of other faiths must more or less put up with Christmas in their face for a good 4- 6 weeks not to mention those obnoxious television and radio personalities ranting about an alleged “war on Christmas” every year.
“The most wonderful time of the year?”
How about the weirdest time of the year?
I mean, if there wasn’t something off, if not downright weird, about this time of year, we wouldn’t have readings like Jane Rzepka’s to read in church. And there wouldn’t be all those movies aired every year at this time where the story centers on holiday mishaps, misfortune, and family strife. This is indeed a weird time of the year.
Now, with all that I’ve said about this season one might conclude that I’ve joined the chorus of those who groan and bear the holidays as best I can.
But you’d be wrong.
I do think this is the weirdest time of year. Lord knows I’ve experienced many a Christmas season that has felt more like an extreme sport or survivalist training than a joyous holiday. But I also happen to think it is the most wonderful, as in wonder-filled, time of the year too.
Twinkling lights, that special hush of falling snow, and certain music admittedly helps create conditions that inspire wonder, for which the season, at least in northern climates, is known and depicted in legend and lore, past and present.
But the wonder-filled part of it all, to me, is that we keep trying.
We know the season isn’t what it was intended to be. And I could go on and on and on about how secularism and commercialization has brought us to a corrupted state where parents are egged on to buy their children’s love with this season’s “must have” gift and a popular clothing brand hocks underwear by showing men dancing in boxer shorts to the tune of jingle… bells. But there are plenty of others who have and can make that point just as well, if not better, than I. I personally recommend the 1965 animated television special, “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!” if that’s the kind of homily you want or need.
No, rather than belaboring or bemoaning the impact of secularism and commercialization on the season, I wish to focus on the fact the we keep returning to this season, hoping for more, which often means less….less pressure, less perfectionism, and less attention given to all those things Jane Rzepka would call, “zip codes”.
And we do try.
Some of us turn to various means of “simplifying” the holidays, drawing on advice from bloggers and self-help gurus, not to mention Youtube videos demonstrating how to cook your roast, ham, turkey or goose much faster, juicier, tastier, etc. etc. Yet somehow the cycle of stress repeats and our hopes are dashed yet again. And while some, having thus lost hope, decide to boycott the holiday season altogether, there is another option.
I don’t think it’s an accident that Jane Rzepka’s Advent reflection has us imagining skydiving into the holiday season saved from certain doom by a correction to the instructions. Her point is clear: If we want the season to be different we have to approach it differently, radically differently. An approach as radical as changing from shouting zip codes to pulling the rip cord is for a skydiver plunging toward earth. And this is why all the well intentioned advice on simplifying the holidays, keeping your cool, making your own wrapping paper, or getting that meal prep time down often flops in one way or another. They’re all invested in the same assumption about what matters: looking good, appeasing everyone, being efficient. In other words they just offer alternative ways to shout zip codes. If we can get a handle on how to properly shout our zips codes, so the logic goes, then we’ll have time to devote to our rip cords.
Meanwhile…splat!
“Perhaps we should look to our rip cords”, writes Rzepka, reminding us we have it backwards. Echoing the wisdom of ages past, she advises, attend first to what matters and all the rest will find its appropriate place.
And if we ever wonder what’s important, we only need remember that this “holiday season” is a season of miracles professed through stories of light:
The light of the temple lamp that inspired Hanukah.
The light of the star that announced the birth of Jesus.
And the light of the sun celebrated at the winter solstice.
Now, miracles don’t get much respect anymore, in part because we tend to get hung up on the mechanics of miracles. What are they, how do they work, are they real, and so forth. But that’s not a helpful approach if they are to be useful. Imagine hurtling toward earth and asking the same about your rip cord before availing yourself of it?
Again, splat!
I’ll let in on a little secret about miracles. They have nothing to do with belief. And everything to do with faith.
Forget the mechanics of miracles and instead consider this assertion from the philosopher and atheist George Santayana, “The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.”
The miracle in a world that is mortal, tormented, confused, and deluded forever, isn’t the intervention of a deity, but the presence of beauty, love, courage, and laughter. These are the flickers, the sparks, the rays, the “important notice” all those ancient stories of the season try to turn our attention toward.
The miracle of Hanukah isn’t that one day’s oil lasted eight, its that the lamp was lit at all without knowing how long it would last. That’s not belief, that’s taking a chance, a risk, a leap of faith. And haven’t we all, in some way, experienced or been inspired by that miracle of light in our lives?
Likewise, the miracle of Christmas has nothing to do with the imaginative nature of Jesus’ conception but rather how, love, as fragile as a child, can grow, sever allegiance with the dominant ways of world and blossom into a deeper, fuller, more compassionate way of life. And don’t each of us know someone or of someone who almost without fail responds benevolently to the human condition. One whose own light has perhaps relighted with flame within us and inspired us to strive toward the same?
And while the miracle of the solstice is and remains for some the astronomical event that science has nonetheless figured out and explained, another miracle it points to is the myriad ways in which life, including human life, is connected and depends on one another, and that we are a part of a larger rhythm of life outside of which we would cease to exist. And isn’t one of the ways learn about and come to know ourselves through the ever changing light of our relationships with others?
These stories have served humanity for centuries for a reason and its not, as is often supposed, because people back then were especially naive or they needed to explain things science hadn’t yet figured out. They speak to something humans increasingly don’t like or don’t know how to talk about anymore: our deepest spiritual needs and concerns.
And they still speak to us, if we’d only let them.
So, if the holiday season’s got you stressed…make light of it.
Which is to say, reacquaint yourself with stories of the season, those stories of light, and open your mind to the real miracles behind the tired headlines hyping supernatural oil and virgin births.
Make light of this season.
Stop shouting zip codes a hundred different ways and look to your rip cords.
And if, by chance you’re ever unsure which is which, let Boris Novak’s words, our second reading, offer some guidance :
Between two words, choose the quieter one.
Between word and silence, choose listening.
Between two books, choose the dustier one.
Between the earth and the sky, choose a bird.
Between two animals, choose the one who needs you more.
Between two children, choose both.
Between the lesser and the bigger evil, choose neither.
Between hope and despair, choose hope: it will be harder to bear.
Hope, one of the most defining qualities of the holiday season, will always be harder to bear because hope requires us to exercise our spiritual muscle in the face of uncertainty.
And like any muscle that doesn’t get a lot of use, it takes time to strengthen and tone. Indeed, the groan that often greets the season just might be a sign of atrophy, a wasting away of our spiritual muscle weakened by despair dressed up as butter, 50 % off sales, and party shoes…zips codes being shouted by people in free fall.
Let us then greet this season anew and make light of it.
Make light of it like our lives depend on it.
Because they do.
Amen and Blessed Be