|
Christmas Eve Calling First Unitarian Church of Des Moines 8PM Candlelight Service 12/24/06 Reading “We grow accustomed to the Dark” by Emily Dickinson
We grow accustomed to the Dark— When Light is put away— As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Goodbye—
A Moment—We uncertain step For newness of the night— Then—fit our Vision to the Dark— And meet the Road—erect—
And so of larger—Darknesses— Those Evenings of the Brain— When not a Moon disclose a sign— Or Star—come out—within—
The Bravest—grope a little— And sometimes hit a Tree Directly in the Forehead— But as they learn to see—
Either the Darkness alters— Or something in the sight Adjusts itself to Midnight— And Life steps almost straight.
Homily
I remember the Christmas Eves of my youth fondly. The family would pile into the car, huddling close to stay warm in the Ohio cold, sliding around on the vinyl car seats to try to heat them up more quickly. As we drove over the branching streets and past the occasional houses decked for the season with colored lights, the giddy anticipation of Christmas was almost too much to bear. Upon our arrival at the Presbyterian Church, the blast of warm air greeted us, as well as the familiar sanctuary filled with poinsettias and people dressed in their finest holiday attire. I remember how artificially bright the church seemed at night. Compared to the scene on Sunday morning, it was like another world. The red carpeting seemed much more red. The minister wore a different robe, with a vibrant stole, and there were usually extra instruments to accompany the organ, sometimes brass, their shiny metal reflecting the lights of the Christmas tree.
I loved the hubbub of the night: singing the Christmas songs and sharing the candlelight and sitting with my family, the five of us taking up half the pew, my siblings and I dizzy from excitement and sugar and usually trying to make each other laugh.
But every Christmas Eve we gathered in that church, I may have been most fascinated by the big star that hung from one of the rafter beams above the altar. It was quite a creation…an enormous, hollow, heavy-weight paper (or was it lightweight plastic?), electrified combination of a dodecahedron and a porcupine…kind of like a lit-up spiky dandelion. In my adolescent disaster-minded imagination, this was a star that would probably do some serious damage to someone if it were to fall. It glowed an even, low-watt orange…kind of like the light of my sister’s EZ Bake Oven.
I marveled at that star and the mystery it symbolized. It gave me something to think about in between the Christmas songs and pokes from my brother. I wondered where it was kept the other 51 weeks of the year. I wondered who got to hang it up. And, I wondered how it might have compared to the star that led the wise men on their long journey to see the baby Jesus.
It certainly didn’t look like the star I had seen in Nativity picture books. The star I had most often seen was more like a bright white cross that took up at least half the page. The star in the church, big though it was, was far more humble…and far more prickly.
Back then, of course, I had little doubt that the wise men had, in fact, seen a star that led them to the manger in Bethlehem…no matter what it actually looked like. The star was a familiar detail of a familiar story. And when we would leave the church and make our way back out into the December dark, my eyes would always be drawn to the starry night sky, hoping that I might catch a glimpse of the kind of star the wise men had followed. The stars always seem so small…so far away, and yet, I still searched for the Christmas star. While my understanding of the Nativity story has changed over the years, and I now think of the star much more metaphorically, I confess, I still leave Christmas Eve services looking for that star…wondering what sign might be waiting for me…for any of us…in the night sky.
What would it be like if such a star actually did appear tonight? If the star were bright enough, like the picture book versions, we could bet there would be more than three “wise men” following it. I imagine the highways would be jam-packed with people holding up their camera phones trying to get the best possible video to be uploaded on YouTube or sold to CNN. Some people would probably react with fear, assuming that terrorists had launched an attack, while others would fall to their knees certain that the rapture had begun at last.
Or maybe we wouldn’t notice at all. Maybe in the busyness of our lives, in the bright lights of all our distractions, especially this time of year, we would forget to look up…to look outside of ourselves…to take in the wonder that is this life itself…this miracle that we are here on this spinning ball, hurtling through an unfathomable universe toward a destination beyond comprehension.
It’s too bad, isn’t it, how easily we can forget the miracle that we are alive? It’s just too easy to become overwhelmed by the particulars of our lives and miss the bigger picture…the blessings all around us.
Our UU take on the Christmas story reminds us that every night a child is born is a holy night…every night holds meaning and possibility and promise, if we will only open ourselves to it. Every night, we are being called to pay attention to this life we share and to embrace each precious opportunity we have to choose love…to choose justice…to choose peace.
This idea of being called, whether by a star or by angels, or by our better natures is one that I wonder about a lot. Many of you here tonight may also be wondering…yearning even…for the guidance of a star, a bright white calling that might show you the way. Maybe you are stuck in the middle of your own dark night…hoping for an unmistakable sign that will direct you toward a new beginning. Maybe you are wondering about a significant relationship, trying to decide what is missing or what went wrong, hoping for some forgiveness or the ability to forgive. Maybe you are grappling with career choices…whether to stay, to go, to begin, to branch out. Maybe you are looking for a star to lead you out of your depression or grief or spiritual malaise toward a healthier way of living.
I don’t want to dismiss altogether the idea that a star (literal or metaphorical) may indeed appear for any of us…calling us to the answers that somewhere inside we already know. In fact, I think life gives us signs all the time, especially if we don’t get too stuck in our pre-conceptions or too limited in where we think wisdom can be found.
Still, I wonder about the time spent waiting for a sign when what we might most need to do is to get moving already…to trust our own sense of the holy or our own inner guidance enough to lead us forward no matter which road we choose. We can’t know for sure what is the “right” way. Life is just filled with too many variables. We will make mistakes. We will let people down. We will end up following stars that vanish before we even get close. But, as Emily Dickinson suggests, maybe we must “grope a little—and sometimes hit a tree directly in the forehead” in order to learn to see the calling that is already there…already in our hearts. Maybe we have to stumble around in the dark in order to find the light that enables our “life to step almost straight.” In fact, maybe the lack of a sign…the lack of a star…is the calling we most need to heed...the calling that says we can wait all our life for an assurance that fills the night sky, or we can start making our own light.
How might you make some light this night and in the nights to come? What choices might you be facing, choices that, once made, could change your life in ways that you can barely conceive?
UU minister Mary Wellemeyer wonders about these kinds of choices… choices embedded in the bigger metaphors of the Christmas story. She writes:
Like
those shepherds who were on the hillsides with
their flocks,
The
little town of Bethlehem is thronged
To which I add, what is the call of your life this night… This painful, fascinating, wretched, exquisite, finite life. This life that asks far more of each of us than we could ever ask of it?
May your answers surprise you in the most splendid ways, encouraging you with their beauty and possibility. And may your night sky be lit with the radiance of your courage and your hope.
|