CELEBRATION OF LIGHT
12/21/08 Summit UU Fellowship
Rev. Kathleen A. Green
My friend and colleague Rev. Susan Manker-Seale, from Tucson, Arizona writes: “Winter. Here in the desert, we’re lucky if it gets cold enough to wear a sweater for more than five days out of the entire season. I still have sweaters I bought twenty-three years ago because they never wear out.”
But even if it doesn’t get very cold, it does get darker.
This time of winter celebrations, include Divali, Advent, Hanukkah, Solstice, Christmas and Kwanzaa. We are in the Season of Light. We haul a tree into our living rooms, put candles in our windows, light fires if we have fireplaces, and hang lights on just about anything we can find.
The seasons of the year are caused by the tilt of the earth's axis. During half of the year, the southern hemisphere is more exposed to the sun than is the northern hemisphere. During the rest of the year, the reverse is true. The lowest elevation of the sun is the winter solstice, and this year it occurs today - DEC-21, -- the first day of winter, when the night time hours are maximum.
I think that I as I grow older I am more and more impacted by the seasons. I realize that the winter (after the hoopla of the holiday season) can be a difficult time, though I’m sure my difficulty does not compare with the difficult times of the Aboriginal people in the northern latitudes during winter in pre-historic times. The growing season had ended and the tribe had to live off stored food and whatever animals they could catch. The people would be troubled as the life-giving sun sank lower in the sky each noon. They feared that it would eventually disappear and leave them in permanent darkness and extreme cold. After the winter solstice, they would have reason to celebrate as they saw the sun rising and strengthening once more. Although many months of cold weather remained before spring, they took heart that the return of the warm season was inevitable. They had hope.
The winter solstice has been observed and celebrated and honored in many ancient cultures. In ancient Egypt, the god-man/savior Osiris died and was entombed on DEC-21. Many, if not most, of the religions and spiritual mysteries being followed within the Roman Empire by the third century celebrated the birth of their god-man near the time of the solstice.
Many symbols and practices associated with Christmas are of Pagan origin: holly, ivy, mistletoe, yule log, the giving of gifts, decorated evergreen tree, magical reindeer, and more. In Massachusetts, Puritans unsuccessfully tried to ban Christmas entirely during the 17th century, because of its heathenism. The English Parliament abolished Christmas in 1647. And there are some contemporary Christian faith groups today who do not celebrate Christmas because of its pagan origins.
I love this time of year: the music, the lights, the carols, the family traditions, the anticipation of seeing friends and family, the expectation of gift giving, and the pure joy that is palpable in the air. However, as a minister, I also know that this season is the most painful time of year for many. For those who are suffering grief, loneliness, depression or other emotional turmoil, the holiday season magnifies their misery. What can be particularly difficult is the perceived expectation that you're not supposed to hurt at this time of year. No matter what you're feeling inside, you're expected to act cheerful. I recently officiated a memorial service and when speaking with the family I learned that some of the grandchildren (young adults) had not been told of their grandmother’s death until after the holidays. It just wasn’t right to spoil this time of year with bad news.
But winter is not just the experience of dark and cold in our physical lives; it represents the dark and cold of our spiritual lives as well. Everyone knows the “dark night of the soul”. Regardless of age or station in life, we have all experienced some type of dark night of the soul, and everyone needs the healing power of light to dispel such darkness and bring us back to the warmth of day and the strength of hope. Hope is what the ancients were looking for when they stood upon the hilltops waiting for the sun to rise on the day after Winter Solstice. That first ray of the sun touched their faces with the promise that life and light would return.
UU minister Rob Hardies shares: “The first religious observances at wintertime were not joyous celebrations, they were desperate supplications. As the sun faded earlier by the day and the earth grew colder, the ancients would throw themselves down on their knees in prayer. They'd beg the gods to bring the sun back. For if they didn't, the people knew their days were numbered.” Not a lot of comfort and joy there.
The long guerrilla war between the Maccabees and the Greeks was certainly not a story of great comfort and joy. The story is probably well known to us all: how the Maccabees, a family or a tribe, a group of Jews defended themselves against the Syrians in order to reclaim their temple; and how, after the Maccabees had miraculously won the battle, they set about to reconsecrate the temple; and how, in order for the temple flame to be kept lit, new oil had to be consecrated, a process which took eight days; and how, though there was but one day’s supply of oil left, the lamp kept burning the whole eight days. It was a miracle, as it must have surely seemed to the Maccabees. Imagine them alone in the Temple, short of supplies, cold and hungry, and perhaps not too sure that they could hold out against the massed armies of the Syrians. All they had going for them was their faith, hope and a belief in the power of light.
In the winter, when the temperatures drop and the earth becomes an inhospitable place, the human race tells stories of desperation. Stories of how we almost didn't make it. But, ultimately, how we survived. We survived by relying on the earth to provide warmth. We relied on our brothers and sisters to struggle with us against oppression. The moral of these stories is that alone, we human beings are incomplete. Insufficient. Utterly dependent one another, and on creation itself for our survival.
Hanukkah celebrates a community that saved itself through cooperation, and resistance, and faith. The story is not about a few valiant leaders. It’s about a community that came together and that's the message of all these stories of desperation at wintertime: That our salvation lies in relationship with others, with God, with all of creation. Our salvation lies in relationship.
What the celebrations of Winter Solstice and Hannukah have in common is the renewing strength and hope of light found through faith. This is the connection. Quite frankly, it is the connection between all of the season of light celebrations.
A year or so ago, President of the UUA, Rev. Bill Sinkford’s holiday message said:
This is the season of light and, in many faiths, the time when people celebrate the return of hope to the world.…And, as we move closer to the end of the calendar year, this is the time when we take stock of our world and wonder what the next year will bring. A time of turning, a time of realigning our lives with our values, a time of longing for our hearts’ desires.
This year, Rev. Sinkford recently returned from a trip to Africa and his holiday message says, in part: “As the winter days of this holiday season grow shorter, we light candles in the darkness. Outside there may be blustering wind and even snow, but inside our homes and congregations, we create warm sanctuaries. We celebrate the joys of the season and anticipate the return of the light.
Along the way, (on this African pilgrimage) we were witnesses to humankind’s capacity for cruelty – and for compassion. One of the most important and difficult parts of the journey was visiting Goree Island, off the coast of Senegal. There we saw the small, dark cells where enslaved people were held. Dozens of human beings were crammed into these dank and crowded spaces and were only allowed outside once a day. There were separate cells for slaves who resisted, for virgin girls who were to be raped by slave traders, and for slaves who were force-fed so that they could be transported across the ocean. Slaves who became sick were thrown into the shark-infested sea. And we saw the “Door of No Return.” Through that door, Africans departed the island alive and enslaved, or dead.
But we also witnessed the human capacity for love and for hope.
During our journey, we visited a school and the orphanage run by our Unitarian Universalist brothers and sisters in Uganda. The resources of the Kampala congregation are modest, but these Unitarian Universalists have nonetheless been successful in vastly improving the lives of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
For many here in the United States and around the world, this year’s holiday season will be a challenging one, in which the continuing problems of war and poverty will be exacerbated by worldwide economic strains. Now, as much as ever, it is critical that we affirm the primacy of love and hope.
There are so many opportunities in this holiday season for each of us, and for our congregations, to shine the light of compassion. Even if we have meager resources and great challenges, we can still serve the larger good.
My holiday prayer is that we will continue to find ways to choose love. By affirming the human capacity for compassion, we – individually and collectively – can be a blessing to the world.”
From the beginning of creation the sun has shortened its flight. But in the midst of the darkness humanity has dared over and over again to celebrate the light. From the beginning of our time on this planet, we humans have created celebrations at this time of year -- whether it be solstice, Hanukkah or Christmas -- as a way to drive away the darkness and to open the door to the light.
Archibald MacLeish helps us to find the light in the darkness in his play “J.B.” "J.B." is a modern takeoff of Job. It's about a contemporary man who loses everything he has, and he struggles to find meaning in the midst of such hopelessness. At the end of the play J.B. reunites with his wife, Sarah. They turn to the dimmed shambles of their home, and J.B. remarks that "It's too dark to see," he speaks not just of their home but of the world, a spiritually darkened world. Sarah replies, "Then blow on the coal of the heart, my darling."
J.B. asks, "The coal of the heart?"
Sarah says, “Blow on the coal of the heart. The candles in churches are out. The lights have gone out in the sky. Blow on the coal of the heart And we'll see by and by . . . “
Faith shared by the patrons of winter solstice and Hanukkah celebrations created hope. Faith that simply means trust, assurance, devotion. We need faith – a faith in community; in each other and ourselves – a trust that light will return after the long dark night. Light will return even when there appears to be oil enough for just one day.
By our own experience of darkness, our own dark night of the soul, our challenges, by our struggles and by our faith, we can be the pinpoint of light that others may need in their hour of darkness. We may be the witness of hope and possibility (a blessing) to those in need.
Remember my friends that when it is too dark to see, blow on the coal of the heart.
Celebrate the light. So be it.
Call to Worship:
Reflections on the Resurgence of Joy, adapt. Dori Jeanine Somers
How short the daylight hours have now become.
A damp and chilling wind has made me gloomy.
But there is that in me which reaches up toward the light and laughter, bells, and carolers,
And knows that my religious myth and dream of reborn joy and goodness must be true,
Because it speaks the truths of older myths;
That light returns to balance darkness, life surges in the evergreen – and us,
As miracles abound in common things.
Rejoice!
And join in the gladness of the season.
Benediction:
As Mickey Goldberg of the Cedarhurst Unitarian Universalists in Finksburg, Maryland wrote in a solstice service:
As we celebrate the solstice we join across time and space all the festivals of light emerging from the dark. May all the Yule fires, all the Hanukkah candles, all the Christmas lights the world over- and all the lights we are kindle here today- not only brighten the darkness of winter but also brighten the darkness of our hearts. May all these lights- set ablaze by people of good will across the globe- assure us that... Spring will follow winter, hope will triumph over despair, Peace will eclipse war, and love will outlast evil.
Shalom and blessed be.
