This past Tuesday our Policy Board held its regular monthly meeting. As we began, Peggy Webbe, our president, invited us into a guided check-in. “Share a fond holiday memory.” When it was my turn I talk about my late father who was a person of great integrity, but also quite willing to lie to his children if it would add to their experience of holiday magic.
For years, every Christmas morning, before my brothers and I began opening our presents, my father would hand us each a small, white candle, the kind we used to light at the Christmas Eve service when the congregation sang “Silent Night.” He taught us that Unitarian Universalist children all over the world lit these special candles before opening their presents. Every Christmas morning we dutifully lit our candles and placed them on the mantel above the fire. There they would burn down to nubs as we gleefully opened our presents. The ritual added a spiritual dimension to the morning. We engaged with reverence. I remember a palpable feeling of connection to my UU peers around the planet. Every Christmas I looked forward to lighting that candle.
I must have been in junior high school when I mentioned the ritual to friend at church, as if they knew exactly what I was talking about. “You know, the Christmas candles.”
They didn’t know.
There was no such ritual practiced in Unitarian Universalist homes beyond ours.
I can’t remember how I felt when I finally understood the deception. I don’t think I was angry. I don’t think it was embarrassing. My father was a beloved youth group advisor. All the kids knew him and likely would have understood: “Yep, sounds like a John Pawelek thing.” I probably felt something akin to that. Of course dad would design a ritual and then make up a story to be sure we took it seriously.
My dad was a positive, optimistic, hopeful person, and he needed ways to express it. This time of year in particular—the darkest time of year when the northern hemisphere tilts infinitesimally back toward the sun and the days begin their slow lengthening—this time of year spoke to him. This time of year when so many traditions use lights to point toward some coming blessing, some better world, some new day—traditions often built atop the long-forgotten midwinter celebrations of ancient agricultural communities—this time of year spoke to him. This time of year when Christians celebrate the birth of the messiah, the king, the savior, the prophet, the great moral teacher, the light of the world, the Jewish peasant radical messenger of peace on earth and good will to all—this time of year spoke to him. There he was in his Christmas glory, playing the role of Kaspar in our congregation’s production of Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night visitors”—Kaspar the king who carried a mysterious box filled with rare gems and licorice. The more I think about it, how could he not make up a story about kindling a flame on Christmas morning to increase his children’s sense of magic, wonder, awe and connection?
He was teaching us to be present to the light and all it might symbolize—peace, hope, love, joy. Don’t just dive into your presents. Be present to the light. Don’t let the solstice moment pass without noticing. Be present to the light. Don’t get caught up in the commercialization of the season. Be present to the light. Let it in. Let it move you. Let it fill you.
For most of my childhood, it was our family’s custom to celebrate Christmas day at our home in Hamden, Connecticut. We would usually share a Christmas dinner with family friends. Then, on December 26th, the five of us would pack into our red and white Volkswagen van and drive south to visit our extended families. We would visit my father’s family—the Paweleks—in Baltimore for a few days. Then we’d visit my mother’s family—the Sterners and Gobrechts—in Hanover, Pennsylvania for a few days, a forty-five minute drive from Baltimore. (That’s the same Hanover famous for Snyders hard pretzels and Utz potato chips.)
I have a lot of fond memories from those trips. I’ve spoken about Hanover before from the pulpit, but it’s been a while. At the time, visiting Hanover felt like going back in time. It was still a farming community then, whereas today so many of the farms have been sold to developers to build middle class homes for people who commute to Baltimore for work. My grandparents owned W.L. Sterners, a hardware and farm implements store on Frederick Street a few over from downtown. Driving into Hanover at midwinter I was always struck by the vast, rolling, snow-covered fields, the not so subtle manure smells, the typical beige-yellow barns common to the region, the lonely silos dotting the horizon, and the clear night sky filled with stars, so much more vivid than where we lived in Connecticut. Downtown Hanover always reminded me of the fictional Bedford Falls in the classic Christmas movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life:” There were lights everywhere. People were out and about and generally friendly. Canned seasonal music played over loudspeakers. Plastic snowmen positioned around a big, gaudy Christmas tree. Sometimes snow fell gently on the scene.
Aunts, uncles and cousins gathered at my grandparents’ house a few doors down from the store on the evening of our arrival. All the children opened presents in the living room. Then came the desserts. Then someone would play a piece on the piano. We would sing carols. My grandfather might pick up his violin and play along. Some years they turned off all the lights in the room except the plug-in plastic candles on the window sills. Eventually my uncle Donald and two of my cousins, Brad and Brian, would break out their trombones and start playing along with the carols. “Joy to the World.” “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” They blended so beautifully, perfectly in tune—that rich, mellow trombone tambre. When he was old enough, my younger brother Nate joined in with his French horn. “In the Bleak Midwinter.” “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” They always ended with “Silent Night.” I learned the first verses to most of the carols, but never learned the others, so either just repeated the first verse, or made up words as best I could. But it didn’t really matter. We were together at the holidays, celebrating, joining our voices, blending, harmonizing, there in the dim, electric candle light, evoking the light of the distant sun now returning, evoking feelings for the baby whose birth was a hopeful sign.
It’s been more than a quarter century since we Paweleks gathered together with the Sterners and Gobrechts in late December. Donald’s son Brad, the first of our generation of cousins, is deceased. Uncle Donald is in his 90s and lives with many health challenges. That gathering won’t happen again, not in that way. But I’ll also never forget it. I’ll never forget the sound which seemed to come so naturally, emerging from some deep well in our family’s spirituality. I’ll never forget the blending and the harmonizing. I’ll never forget those plug-in candles. We were being faithfully present to the light.
Again did the earth shift
Again did the nights grow short,
And the days long.
And the people
of the earth,
[and all its creatures]
were glad
and celebrated
each in their own ways.[1]
These words appear in our hymnal. They are by the writer and artist Diane Lee Moomey who lives in Half Moon Bay, California. (I added the line about the creatures.)
The earth did indeed shift yesterday—at 4:21 am to be precise—tilting its northern hemisphere back toward the sun. It shifted as it does every year, year after year, travelling its endless elliptical orbit around the sun. Of course, it orbits around the sun with the other planets in our solar system, which endlessly spirals around the center of the Milky Way galaxy which, if I understand correctly, also spirals around the center of mass of all our neighboring galaxies. That collection of galaxies is probably moving in some specific way at some great speed as well, but I haven’t looked into it. Point is, there’s a lot of movement, a lot of motion, a lot of circling and spiraling at speeds we can’t perceive. Unless we have the proper tools for measuring, we don’t notice the moment of the solstice. December 21st doesn’t feel any different than the surrounding days. The changes come slowly. As far as our perception goes, the changes are infinitesimal. We’ll notice the difference in a few weeks.
Even so, the shift matters. In its honor, I want to name three wishes—you could call them prayers—that I have for each of you individually, and all of us collectively.
As the earth shifts, as the days begin to grow longer, as the light returns, I wish for you joy. Even if you are struggling in some way, even if you are suffering in some way, even if events in the wider world are filling you with anxiety and fear, keeping you up through these long, dark nights, I wish for you joy in this season: the joy that comes from connecting with family and friends; the joy that comes from giving and receiving gifts; the joy that comes from serving, supporting, helping others in need; the joy that comes with taking a break from an otherwise busy life; the joy that comes from being present to the returning light.
As the earth shifts, as the days begin to grow longer, as the light returns, I wish for you festivity. Midwinter, after all, is a festival. And though a yearning for festivity as the light returns may not exist in our genetic code, it certainly exists in our cultural genome. For millennia people and cultures across the planet have paused at the time of the solstice to celebrate, to light fires, to give gifts, to reverse class distinctions, to dress up, to dress in costume, to eat and drink in the company of others, to sing and dance and frolic long into the night. I wish for you festivity—in whatever dose you can handle. In your festivity, may you be present to the light.
Finally, as the earth shifts, as the days begin to grow longer, as the light returns, I wish for you hope. Those of you who are feeling down for any reason, trudging through your blue Christmas, I wish for you hope. Those of you who are missing a loved one whether they are newly deceased or gone for many long years, I wish for you hope. Those of you who are living with illness, I wish for you hope. Those of you who are worried about the state of the nation, the state of the world—failing institutions, wars, environmental crises, authoritarianism, or even just the basic cost of goods and services—I wish for you hope.
I do not wish for you false hope, pie-in-the-sky hope, hope that has no basis in reality, or hope that will surely be dashed. I wish for you a tempered hope, a reasonable, realistic hope, an honest hope. But really what I wish for you is hope that sustains you as you confront whatever challenges you face—hope that holds you when life is hard. I wish for you, above all else, hope that gives you insight into what you can do with your body, with your own hands, with your heart, your will, your courage, your spirit, your soul to address life’s hardness. I wish for you a hope that enables you to do what is in your power to live, love, serve and create as best you can.
As the earth shifts, as the days begin to grow longer, as the light returns, I wish for you joy. I wish for you festivity. I wish for you hope.
As these wishes come to fruition, may we each be present to the light.
Amen and blessed be.
Comments