A Gift of Darkness

Rev. Mark Stringer

First Unitarian Church of Des Moines

12/12/04

 

Meditation
Creative Spirit, Spirit of Life, known by many names spoken and unspoken…

Just as there are those reveling in seasonal spirit, there are many of us who are not ready for the holiday blitz now confronting us.

The realities of the life we share might be getting in the way of all the good times we are supposed to be having. 

Death, illness, challenges with family and friends, work or school may be having their way with us, wrenching away our joy during this season to be jolly.

Particularly this year, when the stories of battles many miles away, budget cuts close to home, and people struggling to make ends meet are adding to the din of a world that feels topsy-turvy.

And yet, even in the midst of the darkness of our lives and our world,

There is a promise of something more,

A promise expressed in every breath that fills our lungs.

A promise expressed every time we gaze into the eyes of children, seeing there the magic of the season we may have forgotten.

A promise expressed every time we get up the courage to take even just one more step forward, away from our despair or our loneliness.

A promise expressed every time we lighten the heart of another, through a kind word or deed.

A promise expressed each time we choose to believe that this life we share has meaning…meaning that we can make…meaning that calls us to live each day as though it may be our last…with love and forgiveness and respect.

A promise that no matter how tough things may get,

This life we share is what we make of it.

 

Let us share now an extended time of silence…

A time to be at peace, to reconnect with what has been lost,

To open our hearts enough to forgive all that life has handed us

And to honor the challenges we face for all they have to teach us.

We share now a time of quiet reflection.

(silence)

Amen.

 

Reading 

“The Nourishing Dark”  by Richard S. Gilbert

 

We pause in the holy quiet of the nourishing dark.

 

The days are shorter now—the darkness overtakes light.

We miss the sparkling daylight hours,

The long days of brightness and activity.

We yearn for their swift return, and wonder if we can wait,

Or if our patience will at last give out.

 

We forget the nourishing dark at our peril.

There is mystery in the dark to be probed.

There is the adventure of that which cannot be known,
cannot be seen—can only be experienced in the soul.

There is deepness in the dark, impenetrable and inviting.

 

In the darkness we rest our bodies and our souls;

We escape that which distracts and confuses;
we come face to face with ourselves;
we come into the deep places of our being.

 

Darkness is not mere absence of light.

Darkness is not simply an interval between days.

Darkness is the softness of things, the blessed quiet of the night.

 

May we not bemoan the dark, but relish it.

May we feel its powerful presence
and rejoice in its mystical embrace.

May we celebrate the deep and nourishing dark.

 

Sermon

 

I begin with a meditation by Howard Thurman that I often share with you this time of year.  It is entitled "The Season of Remembrance" 

Thurman writes,

 

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.

 

I appreciate Thurman’s words because they touch upon the challenges many of us face this time of year.  No matter how well we think we may have worked through the grief that we carry, there is something about this season that can bring it right back to the surface…as though the wound or loss is as fresh as when it first occurred.

 

This season, many of us may find ourselves grappling once again with the narrative of our lives…the life story that in many ways we did not choose, but through which we continue to live…for better or for worse.

 

It is with respect for these challenges that I offer you this morning a story from my own life…a story that I shared in my first year of ministry with you…a story that continues to have things to teach me.  I trust that it may hold some meaning for you as well as you carry on during this time of recollection…this season of remembrance.

 

Even though I lived in Chicago and New York City for most of the 1990s, the majority of my Christmases during the decade were spent in Ames--where my wife Susan grew up and her parents still lived.  During these years, I was grateful for the opportunity to share in the Thompson family Christmas, and grew accustomed to their holiday rituals.  In fact, the season just wouldn't have seemed right without the ritual of a December drive from Chicago to Ames, over the gently sloping snow-covered hills of Iowa…hills that I now am proud to call home.  My trips to Ames during this time were especially significant to me because through them, I rediscovered the gift of tradition, the joy of sharing the Christmas 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 during this time, we attended the Christmas Eve service at the family place of worship, a vibrant Catholic church a short distance from the family home.  Following the service, we returned to my in-laws' place to share a holiday meal.   While the late dinner that night was always fun, the highlight of the festivities for me was the Christmas Eve service.  Each year, the excitement would build an hour or so before the service when the family would rush to get ready after a busy day of shopping, baking, and wrapping presents.  Then, into the darkness we would go, packing ourselves into the family cars, huddling close to stay warm in the Iowa cold.  Upon our arrival at the church, we would walk into a candle-lit room of greenery and warmth that was familiar to me even on my first visit.   The sanctuary on this holy night in the Catholic calendar is always overflowing with people of all ages, but my eyes would be usually drawn to the children, many of whom would be dressed in their finest holiday attire and showing signs of exhaustion mixed with eager anticipation.  Families on this night, as in most churches, are stretched 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 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…to the rituals to which I had become accustomed. 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, at times, felt a little out-of-place during this yearly event, participating in a service that doesn’t fully jibe with my beliefs.  But I came to accept that it didn’t really matter that I am not Catholic, or that I did not fully understand the implications of all the rituals.  The Christmas Eve service was a time to be together with my wife's family.  It is 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.  I came to understand that the details of the dogma don't really matter all that 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 and promise 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.

 

After 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, 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, wise guy that I was, 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 keep tabs on her daughter but, over time, we had 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 she 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, 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 fifteen 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.

 

I have thought a lot about that night over the years, and the wonderful thing is that this gift of darkness has now become a treasured Christmas memory for me…a memory that can still bring back the pain I felt that night…but that also carries with it joy that I wouldn’t want to forget.  The joy of being loved…the joy of learning, once again, that there is more to life than our losses…and that the empty spaces we carry with us can open up new opportunities for connection…for understanding…for life.

 

While my duties here at church now keep me from attending Catholic mass with Susan’s family on Christmas Eve, we are fortunate to be close enough to celebrate together the next day. Still, this year, the Thompson family Christmas will be different. As many of you know, Susan’s dad died this past spring of complications from Lou Gerhig’s disease. I was talking with Marcia a few weeks ago, suggesting that this season may bring some challenges.  She said with assurance and determination, “Nothing could be worse than it was last year.”

 

I nodded and replied, “Yes, that is probably true.”  Silence hung in the room for a moment or two and then we moved on to some other topic.  But even as we chose to talk about something else, I promised myself that I will do my best to be ready…ready throughout this season and in the years to come.  I will be ready to return the gift that Marcia gave that Christmas Eve several years ago when she let me feel the pain I needed to feel.  I will be ready to return the gift of darkness even as I struggle with the empty space, too.  And I will be grateful for the opportunity.

 

After all, in their best moments, that’s what families are for….

 

During the 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.