Here, and Not Here, for the Holidays
Today we celebrate the winter solstice...the
longest night of the year...the hope—no, the assurance—that the light will
return to our lives...bit by bit.
By “celebrate” I mean that we mark the day as
sacred. I don’t mean to suggest that we’re all happy today. Like every other day of the year we may have mixed feelings... only now our feelings
may be intensified by the merriment all about us. Much of that merriment is real, some is an
enormous public ritual, and some is contrived. In any case it tends to heighten
whatever we are feeling.
Whatever you are feeling today, I invite you to
join me in the “Ode to Gaiety” printed on the cover of your order of service...
Go gloom
Begone glum and grim
Off
with drab drear and grumble
It’s
time
it’s pastime
to come undone and come out laughing
time to wrap killjoys in wet blankets
and feed them to the sourpusses
Come frisky pals
Come
forth wily wags
Loosen
your screws and get off your rocker
Untie
the strait lacer
Tie
up the smarty pants
Tickle the crosspatch with josh and
guffaw
Share quips and pranks with every victim
of grouch pomposity or blah
Woe
to the bozo who says No to
tee hee
ho ho and ha ha
Boo
to the cleancut klutz who
wipes the smile off his face
Without gaiety
freedom is a chastity belt
Without gaiety
life is a wooden kimono
Come cheerful chums
Cut up and carry on
Crack
your pots and split your sides
Boggle
the bellyacher
Convulse the worrywart
Pratfall the prissy poos and the fuddy
duds
Take drollery to heart or end up a
deadhead
at the guillotine of the mindless
Be
wise and go merry round
whatever you cherish
what
you love to enjoy what you live to
exert
And when the high spirits
call
your number up
count on merriment all the way to the
countdown
Long live hilarity euphoria
and flumadiddle
Long live gaiety
for all the laity
James
Broughton
CHILDREN’S FOCUS Henry’s Awful Mistake Robert Quackenbush
Summary: Henry the duck wants to have a special
dinner for his friend Clara. When he
sees an ant in the kitchen, he first chases it with a frying pan. When it crawls into a crack in the wall, he
goes after it with a hammer...eventually destroying the wall, knocking out a
pipe, flooding the house, and of course ruining the dinner.
MESSAGE
So.
How many of you are here today? And how
many of you are somewhere else? And how
many are both here and somewhere
else?
For
some, the Wausau area is home, and it’s a good place to be for the
holidays. For some this is home but
there are other homes that we long
for: homes that are places, or homes that are families.
Going
home, being home, making-a-home for the holidays is much more complicated than
trip-planning and meal-planning. For
many of us it’s a challenge just to figure out who or what or where home might
be.
If
“home” is “with family,” does that mean with our children, with our parents,
with our stepparents, grandparents, grandchildren, or in-laws? And what if we don’t have any of the above? Or what if we’d rather
not spend our all-too-rare vacation
time with these people?
If
“home” means “with those we love,” then how can we be home, with those we love,
who have died?
For
many, this church family is home, even for some who live in other states. And
“homecoming” means being at the UU church for the holidays. But those who have
been away since Christmas past will find that last year’s family is here ...but
not all here. Last year’s family is gone
but not completely gone. Memories of
those we have loved and lost now sit snugly among new babies, new visitors, new
members and friends. We are as beautiful
as ever, and we will never be the same.
***
The
innocence of Christmas past is also
here-but-not-here. The innocence is here
in our efforts to engage in childlike joy, and yet, even since our last trip
around the sun we’ve entered a phase of life in which it’s hard to feel carefree.
Regardless of whether we feel our war in Iraq is justified, it’s hard not to be
emotionally torn when we hear ourselves say: “Peace to all (and thank God our
enemies are on the run).”
***
Our
minds and our hearts may be here today, but not here. Not here if holiday
memories are too painful. Not here if
our attention is pulled away by things left to do. Not here if we’re unimpressed with holiday
glitz.
Resistance
to holiday excess is probably necessary -- to sanely limit ourselves is to cry
“enough” at some point. Does that make
everyone a humbug? I like the reading we
shared for our opening words--boo hoo to the fuddy dud humbugs. I can be
one. So I need to be reminded to laugh
at myself, to correct my mood, to prime the pump to enjoyment. Perhaps I’m not
going to reach angelic heights of joy,
but simple enjoyment is not out of
the question.
But even simple enjoyment can be hard to conjure
up on demand. Because the holidays evoke
grand memories and hopes, unbidden. They remind us not only of what we might be
thankful for, but also of what we long for.
Holidays and family gatherings can trigger feelings that have been
unresolved for decades.
Unresolved losses are prime examples of ways
that we can be here-but-not-here for the holidays. Losses involving someone who has left without
saying goodbye, or someone who said goodbye without leaving.
These kinds of “ambiguous losses” are an
incredible challenge to cope with, because the grieving never seems to end --
or perhaps it never even gets started – because the relationship has changed,
but is not completely over.
There are countless examples: a friend with a
brain injury; a soldier unable to communicate with her family; a loved-one with
a degenerative disease; a child given up for adoption. We experience ambiguous loss
when someone becomes physically absent from our lives but remains emotionally
present...or is physically present, but emotionally absent.
Even if the home you go to for the holidays is
far away, you may have gone back there since the last holiday season if there
was a funeral to attend. But if the loss
that your family is facing is more ambiguous than death, then you may be going
home this week for the first time to see an uncle who has had a stroke, a
sister who has been divorced, or a childhood friend who’s partner now has
Alzheimer’s disease. Someone is
gone. But there has been no family
ritual to acknowledge the change.
One of three U.S. families is touched by
Alzheimer’s. Add to this those affected
by depression and other mental illnesses, by layoffs, alcoholism, or
over-commitment to work (now that we take our offices home with us, and even on
vacation, it’s hard to tell if mom is sitting here eating dinner with us... or
is she at work?...the truth is, she’s both.)
So it’s likely we all have something like this (here-but-not-here) in our lives. Maybe something as common as sterilization or
vasectomy--you know: it's there, but it's not all there. For me it’s a 16
year old son who lives in Minneapolis. Out of sight. But not out of mind.
In each of these cases, it may be helpful to
know that if we’re distressed it’s not just because of our inability to
cope. Our distress is the result of a
situation which is truly beyond our
control.
Regrettably, we often respond to such situations
as if there were a logical solution.
Like chasing the offending ant with a frying pan. Or like ending the holiday dinner with an
argument, just to make the transition a little easier.
***
Is there anything we can do to prevent
unresolved and unresolvable grief from spiraling downhill? I think there are a
few things we can do. Allow yourself, and others, to acknowledge the sadness if
this is the first Christmas without someone.
Do the same if you suspect that this may be your
last holiday with someone.
If possible, share your feelings with the people
with whom you share the holidays. But if
that’s not possible, call me, or call another friend. It’s amazing how much
better it can make you feel just to tell someone that you’re a little sad.
Don’t wait till you’ve torn the whole house down.
What else can you do in the face of holiday
blues? Tell stories, look at old photos, laugh and cry. Instead of throwing out the family traditions
that bring you face to face with semi-present family members, adapt the traditions
to accommodate changing realities.
Don’t try to shield children and grandchildren
from your feelings. They too are
re-drawing their family pictures in their minds. It may be helpful to have them
put their shifting mental images on paper. But let their pictures change from
day to day. Don’t strictly define
“family” for children, but let them know that they can include those living or
dead, in the household, out of the household, or partially in and partially out.
Don't pass on the myth that a person's absence or presence is the only thing
that determines whether they are part of the family.
***
In his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People,
Rabbi Harold Kushner speaks of the apparent absurdity of fate. Kushner believes in a loving God, but he refutes
the idea that everything that happens to us in life is part of a complex system
of cosmic justice, in which we get what we deserve. In fact Kushner believes that God is largely
impotent, unable to prevent evil, unable to keep bad things from happening.
But in Kushner’s view, God is not entirely impotent. God acts by being ever-present... and thereby
inspiring the loving acts of others.
So in the face of loss, especially an
unresolvable loss that makes no sense, there is no point in asking, "Why
is this happening to me?" or, "What did I do to deserve
it?" The only meaningful question
is this: "Now that this is happening, what am I going to do?"
For even in the face of loss we can find
meaning, we can find understanding, we can find compassion -- for ourselves,
and for others. And in our acts, we can
find some healing. Thus our acts of loving presence can become
the acts of a loving God.
Kushner lost a son to a childhood illness.
Looking back, he knows that he has grown from this experience. But he writes, "I would forego all the
spiritual growth and depth which has come my way because of [my experience],
and be what I was 15 years ago, an average rabbi, an indifferent counselor,
helping some people and unable to help others, and the father of a bright,
happy boy. But I cannot choose.”
***
Many of us are living with new or ongoing losses
this holiday season. Many of us have moved through such losses. We are not all
merry, or we may be merry, on-and-off. And that’s ok.
Many
of us will face an ant in the kitchen at some time within the next few
weeks. We will see something that
provokes an irrational response. It will be all we can do to look the other
way. To swallow hard and allow the ant
to be present...without allowing it to become overwhelming present. Your
ant may be grief, it may be an irritating brother-in-law, it may be fruitcake,
or conspicuous consumption.
If
your ant is on the verge of becoming all too present, the last thing you may
want to hear is the question, “How are you?”
After all, you don’t want to lie, but you also don’t want to call
attention to the ant, and risk spiraling into self-destruction. This would be one of those times when it’s best
to look the other way.
But
there may be other times to invite the ant to the party.
***
As
is so often the case, I’d really like for my message today to be delivered to
those who are NOT here, those who have given up hope of healing from their
losses.
So.
If you are not here...even if you are here-but-not-here, that’s ok. Soak in the loving-kindness of those all
around you.
But
if you are here — please pass this
message on to someone who needs it. Be
for someone the messenger of love. Be the savior, the Buddha, the spirit of
forgiveness and hope entering the world in an unexpected place in an unexpected
way.