Chapter 19: Christmas Slush

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"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!

Let your forebearing spirit be known to all people. The Lord is near." 

(Philippians 4:4-5)

"The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world."

(Abraham Heschel, The Sabbath)

I remember the first year that I was unable to make it back home for Christmas. I was single and going to school in Connecticut. My family was over the river and a world away in Wyoming. Though I was given a Christmas break, I still had to work. All my classmates were gone.  My roommate was gone.  I didn't have any pets. I was all alone. The only thing living in the living room of my apartment was a fig tree which I had decorated with a string of broken lights.  When I looked at it, I thought of the rest of my family gathering around a warm fire, drinking hot cocoa, and admiring one of my mother's amazing Christmas trees. 

I looked away with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. I was smack-dab in the middle of a Thomas Kinkade Christmas going on outside, it just didn't seem like any of it soaked into my inside. In fact, all the glitz and tinsel and beauty and wonder of the season only seemed to spotlight my personal slough of despond.  I was having my first blue Christmas.

Occasionally, I still get the Christmas blues, though I know that Christmas can be tough for many people for reasons much more serious than a poorly-decorated house plant and episodic ascetism. But the command is still, "Rejoice!" And if that is not enough, the indefatigable Pharisee continues to rub salt in our woundedness, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!"

Is it possible to "rejoice" in the face of our loneliness and from the heights of love, from the dregs of our brokenness to the fullness of our hearts? The answer must be, "Yes!" It has to be even if only by the eyes of faith. And I believe that this vision is best cultivated by the practice of Sabbath.

Jewish scholar, Abraham Heschel, suggests that we can experience "holiness" in time through the practice of Sabbath.  It may not happen overnight, but it does happen. God replaces our thoughts about the sad string of lights on the poor, fruitless, fig tree with a thousand little reminders that God is still at work in the world and in our lives, even when the beautiful snow turns to slush.  

Sometimes it is a beautiful church service, a grand Christmas meal, and storefronts bedecked with holiday wonder. But sometimes holiness comes in swaddling clothes wrapping a fragile memory of Christmas past when the house was full.  It can be a smile on the street or picking up the phone and calling a family member back home in Wyoming. After all, God does not promise that the lights on the tree can dispel the darkness of the world.

Our holidays this year were spent visiting with family and eating fine food.  On Christmas, there were beautiful church services and a wondrous Christmas tree.  But it was this morning, sitting with my wife in a cluttered house with the remains of the last five days in the sink and another full week of work looming before us that I realized God was still with us. This moment was holy. This moment was Sabbath. In this moment, heaven kissed the earth just like it did when the angels first sang to an audience of Shepherds, "Rejoice!" May we all find little reasons throughout the year to remind us to do the same.