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A Gift of Darkness Rev. Mark Stringer First Unitarian Church of Des Moines 12/16/01
MeditationSource of hope and renewal The time of darkness is upon us. Shorter days making the sunlight more precious, Longer nights making the lights of the season more bright.
Barren trees, now more exposed to the elements and our eyes, wave their latticework limbs in the December breeze Providing a meaningful backdrop To the unfolding stories of our lives.
For rare is the tree without some twists-- Without some dips and knots and splits. And rare is the life without some twists-- Without some dips and knots and splits. Unexpected growth and unforeseen death Wedded into one beautifully gnarled shape of living. Beautiful…for it is all we know.
The time of darkness is upon us. While our days are still blessedly balmy Reports from lands afar continue to chill us with the details Of a dogmatic hatred that knows no bounds. May we not be frozen by their icy conceit But encouraged to stay huddled and connected With those who share our world So that our collective heat may ignite a greater fire of justice… Enough to thaw the hearts of those who believe freedom and righteousness are only for a chosen few.
Let us be silent for a time as we discover once again The breath of life that connects us all.
(Silence)
Amen.
Reading "The Season of Remembrance" by Howard Thurman
Again and again, it comes: The Time of Recollection, The Season of Remembrance. Empty vessels of hope fill up again; Forgotten treasures of dreams reclaim their place; Long-lost memories come trooping back to me. This is my season of remembrance, My time of recollection. Into the challenge of my anguish I throw the strength of all my hope: I match the darts of my despair with the treasures of my dreams. Upon the current of my heart I float the burdens of the years; I challenge the mind of death with my love of life. Such to me is the Time of Recollection, The Season of Remembrance. SermonEven though I have lived in Chicago and New York City for the past ten years or so, the majority of my Christmases during this time have been spent in Ames--where my wife Susan grew up and where her parents still reside. I have been grateful for the opportunity to share in the Thompson family Christmas, and have grown accustomed to their holiday rituals. In fact, the season just wouldn’t have seemed right over the past decade without that customary December drive from Chicago to Ames, over the gently sloping snow-covered hills of Iowa. When I was officially called to be the minister of this church, I delighted in the realization that not only would Susan and I get to continue our Christmas visits to the home of her youth, but we would be able to do it in a fraction of the time. Good news, to be sure, for I didn’t want to let go of our holiday visits to Ames, where I have rediscovered the gift of tradition, the joy of sharing the season with family...and with ritual.
My own immediate family lost a great deal of its Christmas gumption after the death of my mother in 1988. My mother had been the keeper of our family's Christmas flame. She put up the decorations. She crafted her own advent wreath and encouraged us to attend church. She played holiday music all through the month of December. She made the season special. Despite her fine example of Christmas cheer, the celebrations we attempted in the few years following her death did not inspire us to regularly overcome the miles that now separate us. Our gatherings mostly served to remind us of what we had lost...and of how Christmas had become something altogether different from what it had been for us just a few years earlier...different from what we thought it should be. It just didn't seem like Christmas anymore.
In Ames, however, I had been given the opportunity to tap back into the magic of the season. I had been welcomed into a new family and a new set of holiday traditions, and I was grateful for the gifts. According to custom, each year we have attended the Christmas Eve service at the family place of worship, a vibrant Catholic church a short distance from her parents' home. Following the service, we have returned to my in-laws' place to share a holiday meal. While the late dinner that night is always fun, the highlight of the festivities for me has been the Christmas Eve service. The excitement builds an hour or so before the service when the family rushes to get ready after a busy day of shopping and baking. Then, into the darkness we go, packing ourselves into the family cars, huddling close to stay warm in the Iowa cold. Upon our arrival at the church, we walk into a candle-lit room of greenery and warmth that was familiar to me even on my first visit. The sanctuary is always overflowing with people of all ages, but my eyes are usually drawn to the children, many of whom are dressed in their finest holiday attire and are showing signs of exhaustion mixed with eager anticipation. Families on this night stretch beyond the normal nuclear groupings, to include Grandma and Grandpa, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters who are back for the holiday. The church is always buzzing.
On Christmas Eve 1998, I was in these familiar surroundings once again. From the balcony of the Catholic church where the Thompson family has gathered in worship for years, I had a wonderful vantage point to observe the proceedings. As usual I was looking forward to the service. I was looking forward to the music, to the reading of the Christmas story...a miraculous tale of hope that I had heard read annually throughout my life, but most of all, I was looking forward to the candles...especially the time in the service when everyone would be holding their own piece of a common flame, illuminating the church in that hazy yellow glow produced by the mingling of fire and candle wax. In the balcony this night, I had a prime seat to take in the pageantry of the evening, to bask in the glow of community, of family, of this gift of life and of love. I must confess, despite my pleasure at being present, I have sometimes felt a little out-of-place during this yearly event, participating in a service that doesn't fully jive with my beliefs. But, I've come to accept that it doesn't really matter that I am not Catholic, or that I do not fully understand the implications of all the rituals. The Christmas Eve service has been a time to be together with my wife's family. It has been a night that is important to them and to the hundreds of people who gather in the church with us. It is a night for celebration...a night to be with one another and to share some light at one of the darkest times of the year. The details of the dogma don't seem to matter much at times like these...times that allow us to be together across the generations...to see the delight in children's eyes...to see families connecting and reconnecting once again, remembering what they have shared...and maybe what they have lost....A time of recollection during a season of remembrance.
Soon into that year's service, I became immersed in my own recollection and remembrance...in my own feelings of family lost. A wave of significant sadness began to wash over me, no doubt propelled by the sight of a church filled with families, all eagerly anticipating the festivities ahead. My thoughts wandered back to the Decembers of my youth and I could not get the images of my own immediate family out of my mind. Pictures of Christmas past--my siblings and I at the church of our youth, my mother and father holding hands and singing, and later all of us gathering for our own Christmas celebration--these pictures, once just fuzzy memories floating lightly through the Catholic mass, had overtaken the proceedings. I was blinded by the glare of almost forgotten memory and found it difficult to concentrate. When Susan's family left the pew with the rest of the people seated in the balcony to receive communion, I stayed behind and continued singing the hymn that accompanied the ritual. Suddenly, I was alone in a sea of empty pews, watching a throng of people below. I am accustomed to sitting alone during this portion of the Catholic service, but this time was different. It was like I was floating above it all, watching the scene as though I were attending the theatre. Later my favorite ritual, the time when the flame is shared and the church glows with the light of hundreds of candles, seemed inappropriate to me...the candles too bright...the hope implied not real. After all, the candles of hope I had held with my family years ago had not kept us together. The candles this night were a cruel reminder of what had been lost.
As the service ended and we made our way back to the house, I kept to myself. I knew there was something brewing inside of me and I was afraid to unleash it in the car. I wasn't quite sure what was going on. I just knew I needed to be alone. Upon our arrival back at the house, I told Susan that I was going to lie down for a little bit and I went into the bedroom we had been sharing and shut the door. I lay on the bed, still feeling queasy, still not quite sure of what to make of what had just occurred. After a short time, Susan's mother, Marcia, knocked lightly on the door and entered. My relationship with Marcia at that time had not quite matured. We seemed content to keep things respectfully distanced, though streaks of connection occasionally surfaced. In the early days of my relationship with Susan, I believe Marcia and I would sometimes butt heads—a product of her well-intentioned desire to continue parenting Susan, contrasted by my limited expectations of a parent's role in the life of an adult child--a product of my father's more distanced relationship with me and my siblings. Marcia would call and question me about where Susan was, what she was doing, when I expected her home, why didn't I know when she would be home, etc. Most of the time I would respond with answers like, "I don't know," "Why don't you talk to Susan about that?" etc. Marcia probably didn’t appreciate my failure to disclose information but, over time, we had apparently reached a level of understanding that eliminated the need for phone call confrontations. Now Marcia was entering the bedroom where I lay, and I was afraid. While I appreciated the attention Marcia was showing by checking in on me, I wasn't sure that I wanted her in the room. I feared that I wouldn't be able to exhibit the Christmas cheer that I figured she would be expecting from me. Besides, I knew that dinner would be ready soon and that I would be expected to join in the celebration...a celebration I wasn't sure I could honestly join.
Upon entering the room, Marcia quickly put me at ease. She gently asked how I was doing. I responded by saying, "I don't know. I feel a little queasy." There was a part of me that wanted to tell her everything...but at that point, I didn't even know where to begin and I wasn't sure I would know how to stop once I started. She then said, "Take as long as you need Mark. There'll be food if you want some." Then she quietly shut the door. Just before she left, though, in an act of mothering I had not experienced in years, she gave me a wonderful gift. I'm not sure that she knew what she was doing, but I'll give her the credit for it anyway. That Christmas Eve, after we had spent an evening in church celebrating how important it is to share our light, my mother-in-law gave me the gift of darkness. As she walked out of the room, she flicked the switch on the wall, turning off the overhead light. A cool darkness washed over me and almost instantaneously, lying there in that silent, darkened room, I began to cry. This was one of those memorable, cleansing cries that only come on rare occasions, if at all. I could feel my stomach churning out pain that I had almost forgotten about. I was crying for my mother and for my brother and sister, and for my father, and for myself. I was crying for Christmas, and for loneliness and for togetherness. As in all the best cries of my memory, I also laughed. I laughed for the gifts of my life, for the love of my new family, for the blessing my mother-in-law gave to me by simply turning off the light. I savored the moment, recognizing the gift it was to be crying and laughing, and crying some more. Now that more than ten years have passed since my mother's death, the tears don't come as often. In fact, the memories of her continue to blur and fade with each passing year. To cry out, to feel the pain again, to have the opportunity to recognize what my family shared and lost was probably the greatest gift I received that year. It was a gift that I could not have opened had I not been given the space...and the darkness to do so. As the leader of the Thompson Christmas celebration, Marcia could have tried to pull me out of my funk, so as not to complicate the party. And yet, she let me be where I needed to be...alone...in darkness...wading through a swamp of disappointment and loss long enough to reach the other side.
Thirty minutes or so after Marcia had turned off the light and closed the door, I joined the family in the living room. In my sorrow, I had acknowledged the pain of my family and my need to reconnect with them. And I had acknowledged the blessing it was to be with my new family. The time spent in darkness had brought clarity-- recognition of what I had lost and gained...a wonderful gift to receive. I walked over to where Marcia was sitting on the couch and kissed her gently on the forehead and whispered "thank you." As she looked up, into my still red eyes, we shared another moment. A moment of recognition, perhaps. A moment of love. A moment of peace.
During this holiday season we may have a tendency to wrap ourselves in light...to not allow the shadows to interfere in the great time we are supposed to be having. Our great expectations are often our greatest hurdles. We subject ourselves to distractions that take us away from one of the truest gifts of December--the darkness of the season that encourages us to reconnect, to recollect, to remember. But it is the darkness that makes the light possible. It is the darkness that encourages us to bask in the warmth of family and friendship...in the glow of living and loving. It is the darkness that shows us the way to the light...in this Time of Recollection, in this Season of Remembrance.
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