Blue Christmas 2023

Five blue candles of varying heights, lit against the night.

Tonight will be the longest night, the night we’re furthest from the sun (here in the northern hemisphere at least). It’s cold, the darkness draws in, and astronomy becomes metaphor. We cycle through the season, springtime and harvest, summer and winter, but we can be wary about that awareness – what if the spring doesn’t arrive, what if the nights don’t get shorter, what if, what if, what if… It can sometimes feel like the night will go on forever, with the dawn nothing but a cruel mirage. Maybe this sounds like hyperbole. Maybe it sounds like truth.

It’s here that I say that things do get better, that you’re stronger than you think you are, even when you don’t believe that. The nights get shorter, a bit more light every day. But there are times in the year that give us reasons to pause and acknowledge that sometimes things are hard, that there are those who would have been here who aren’t, that there are broken things and broken hearts, that at this time of year the music of Slade and Mariah can get drowned out by the noise of war drums, of scapegoating, of panic, or by the silence of absence, loneliness, despair. We can’t move on without acknowledging grief and sadness and loss.

“Every worship group should have a break-up song.” I can’t remember who said this – they had an Irish accent if that helps – but they were right. We like to talk of hope, of faith, joy; we’re less interested in talking about doubt, of sadness and trauma, of depression and despair and disappointment, as if these were two binary choices rather than different facets of the messiness of life.

In some traditions, today is a day to acknowledge and make room at the inn for sadness, for loss, of worry. The Nativity contains all these things alongside the hope and hallelujahs. Blue Christmas creates a space to recognise hurt and all we’ve lost. And maybe it’s appropriate that it coincides with the Feast of St. Thomas, the doubting disciple, the one who had to wait for a glimpse of hope, the one who embodies both cynicism and faith. Let’s not criticise Thomas too much – he was given hope in the midst of an impossible situation. The candle still flickers, the dawn still peeks above the horizon, a scarred but loving hand still reaches out towards Thomas, towards us.

(I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or liturgical brilliance, but today is also the celebration of ‘O Oriens’, Jesus pictured as the dawn. Shameless plug – my post on this is here, including the Holy Spirit masquerading as a robin.)

All these ideas coalesce today, because if we celebrate Blue Christmas it’s in the context of the days getting longer, increments of hope. Things can change, not because that’s an inevitability, but because we can look after each other, weep with those who weep, dance with those who sing. Sometimes, on the darkest night, God can seem far away, but that’s just an invitation to see him reflected in those around us, churches and communities as stars in the depths of the dark, candles raging against the night, a reminder that we’re still in advent, that Christmas is around the corner, that someone, somewhere, needs and wants you to be here tomorrow, next week, next Christmas.

The Blessing of the Backpacks

Leather bag hanging from a coat stand.

Over the last few days, churches throughout the world will be carrying out one of the lesser-known liturgical practices, the Blessing of the Backpacks. School pupils, students and workers will bring their backpacks and briefcases and toolbags to be blessed at the start of a new academic year; the summer holidays are over, life returns to normal and it’s time for work to begin again in earnest. And people will pray that the days ahead will be blessed, and that the work that’s carried out by the owners of these backpacks will go on to be a blessing to others. I’ve only second-hand knowledge of these services, but I like the idea of them; rituals like this are a nice spiritual practice, a way of welcoming God into the day-to-day.

But if I’m honest, the idea is tinged with sadness; it’s been a difficult few months, full of unexpected difficulties and complications. Life is two steps forward, one step back into the open manhole and it’s hard to see where God is when life gets like this, when cynicism is a blanket and new problems hide like assassins in the dark corners of the future.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written here, and I’ve missed it, even though I haven’t been able to summon up the brainspace to arrange these squiggles on a page into something remotely coherent. But my work bag contains a laptop and a notebook and maybe they’re tools by which I can try to reconnect with God at a time when frustration and fear have come to dominate. After all, it’s the start of a new year, right? New beginnings and all that, resolutions for the future, and maybe it’ll last and maybe it won’t, but I’ve got to do something.

And that’s how life is – sometimes you feel blessed, sometimes you feel damned, but emotions aren’t the be-all and end-all of our religious experience. Sometimes we need the ritual, sometimes we need to put on our game face and come out swinging, sometimes we need to stop talking in cliches and just act like we believe what we believe. Our backpacks contain all the things we carry, and we can bless people out of that, even that’s something as simple as honesty or hard-won empathy. Sometimes it’s a blessing just to know you’re not alone.

So we enter a new year, a new season, and yet we can let go of the pressure because really that’s something we do every day, blundering into the future and doing our best. And we take our backpacks with us, because we can only use the things we carry and maybe, just maybe, God snuck a note of love and encouragement in there just before we set out.

Advent in Strange Times

Four Advent candles

Christmas is going to be different this year. The celebrations will be muted, COVID’s shadow falling over our nativities and family dinners, and much as we may want to rage against this, it’s a situation we’re stuck with. And that’s frustrating and heartbreaking in so many ways. ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ has become such a cliche, but the stiff upper lip thing only goes so far, doesn’t it? This isn’t going to be the Christmas any of us imagined twelve months ago.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, four weeks of preparation and anticipation not just for Christmas but also the coming of the Kingdom of God. And in a year in which everything has been turned upside down, Advent is full of new possibilities.

But first things first, maybe it’s a time to grieve: to grieve those we’ve lost, the loved ones who won’t be with us around the table this year. We grieve the other things that are causing us suffering – job security, finances, physical and mental health, fraying relationships, loneliness. The Christmas lights seem to be going up early this year, but they shouldn’t mask the heartbreak. 2020 is going to be a rough Advent and it’s worth remembering that Blue Christmas is on December 21st. We have to make space to mourn the losses of the year.

Advent is also a time of looking forward, looking toward the promise of Christmas, looking toward God’s Kingdom breaking through. Sometimes it’s easy to take this for granted; Christmas is a time of tradition and ritual, we know what’s coming and look forward to it. That rug has been pulled from under us, but maybe there’s a strange kind of hope in that, opportunity in the uncertainty to find Christmas anew and reshape how we celebrate the coming of Christ.

I mean, when we look at it, Christmas is a time to remember that God has always been at work in a world of young families, stressed hospitality workers, blue collar labourers and farmhands, academics, refugees, grieving families, power-hungry authoritarians and protest-singing teenagers. Sometimes that gets lost behind the tinsel and the shopping. Maybe 2020 is an invitation to re-enter the more complicated Christmas faced by Mary and Joseph 2,000 years ago.

So how do we bring communities together when Coronavirus puts us all at risk? How do we do our Christmas shopping in a way that supports struggling independent businesses? How do we run online carol services while also being mindful of digital exclusion? How do we reach out to those who are constantly told there is no room at the inn? Advent is a space to ask all those questions.

The answers to these questions need to be inspired by the Spirit, who is already answering them; God is With Us within Coronatide, not in spite of it. And so throughout this weird, upside-down Advent, in this time of uncertainty and unexpected change, we need to hold on to Jesus, to find him in the chaos and confusion and follow him through. And I’ll be honest, here and now; I don’t know where to start with this, it feels like there are too many questions and not enough answers.

But Advent is a time to rediscover the guiding star, to put one foot in front of the other and set out for Bethlehem. The journey is before us and though the route is unclear, the destination is the same. Start walking.

Memorytide

All Souls Day by Jakub Schikaneder

November is a time for remembering: All Saints and All Souls, Armistice Day and Guy Fawkes Night. As darker nights draw in and the world prepares for winter, the year gone by edges closer, like a haunting, and we remember all we’ve lost over the previous twelve months, in all its loneliness and hurt.

2020 has been a hell of a year, politics and Coronavirus combining to destabilize everything. Our losses have been magnified – all those months separated from those we care about, all those days of uncertainty, all those hours in the middle of the night as we try to ward off the shadows of despair. 2020 is going to live with us for a long time.

It’s okay to grieve. There are those who are no longer with us, there are opportunities that evaporated, there are hopes that have withered as their roots dried. Why shouldn’t we mourn the goodbyes, be saddened by the postponements? If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that getting back to normal is easier said than done.

But remembrance is also strength. We remember those we loved and still love even though they’re no longer here, We remember the things they taught us, how they made us feel, the billion things that made them them. We can hold these close, draw power from a shared story. The pain is real, the loss is real, but so is the love, and the greatest of these is love.

We remember our faith, all the saints who went before us, from St. Peter carrying the Keys to the Kingdom, to a quiet old matriarch carrying a mop. They formed us and helped us and taught us, they’re part of the DNA of our faith and they’re still with us somehow, a strange communion that exists even when our church buildings are closed and our meetings have found their way onto Zoom and Youtube, the waves and the wires. Remember that the Church is bigger than we think, that it incorporates robes and suits and tonsures and cornrows and wheelchairs and all those called by God, remember that the margins don’t keep people out, they just make the Church a whole lot bigger, remember that the Spirit will fly wherever the Spirit pleases and it’s easier to follow because you’ll never trap that Dove in a cage.

We remember the betrayal and the anger and the brokenness, the things that happened but shouldn’t have happened, the cold shoulder, the knife in the back. These things are also real, and they were wrong, they were stupid, they were sin. We remember to cry out for justice, for the pain to change us, not so that we become a monster that fights monsters, but so that it spurs us forward, helps us to get back on our feet one more time, to not let the gatekeepers and the life-thieves keep us from a better future, not let them steal our greater visions.

We remember the broken, we remember the fallen, we remember those who once stood proud on the parade ground who now shiver in doorways. We remember the heartbreaking sacrifices, we remember the silence at eleven, we remember the limitations of flags. We remember those who fight and those who flee, the improvised explosives and the sunken dinghies. We remember that, while don’t all go to war, and we don’t all escape a home in ruins, we can all try to be healers, be peacemakers, can all turn our swords into ploughshares, even if those swords are words.

This is a season of memory, and it has been for centuries. We should mourn with those who mourn as the days get short and the nights get long. But in this time of memory, in the days of ice and desolation, there are seeds buried deep in the ground and every tree stripped bare has the potential for new beginnings hidden within. Because Spring will spring, as unlikely as that sometimes feels; Easter is on it’s way, and while even Jesus still carries the scars of the past in his hands, he reaches out in the dark, weeps alongside you, picks up a lantern and guides us towards the dawn.

The Desolation of Holy Saturday (Matthew 27:57-66)

Once, long ago, I lay curled up on my bed feeling hopeless and defeated and like every positive future had withered and died. I don’t talk about this often – this may even be the first time – and although the passage of time has taken away the feelings, I still remember the cloying numbness, the claustrophobic fog of depression.

That time passed, praise God, but the feelings return at times; many years later, weeks before going on holiday, I woke with the conviction that, if I went to New York I’d die. It was a lie, of course, a falsehood generated from who knows where. And I went to New York and saw the Statue of Liberty and a busker who looked like Hendrix tuning his guitar but never actually playing. I went to New York, because sometimes simply doing something good is a victory.

I won’t say I’m free of all this; it manifests differently now, I take medication and I get through it. And that’s why I often talk about the sort of faith that hangs over a cliff by its fingernails, because anyone who tells you that faith is pain free, that belief is a one way ticket to Big Rock Candy Mountain is trying to sell you something, or maybe just trying to cast their own spell to ward off troubles.

Holy Saturday sits at the heart of Easter weekend, an awkward heartbreak innoculating us against cheap triumphalism. There’s a season for everything, and Holy Saturday is a time to weep, a time to mourn, a time to lay flowers at a graveside. It’s a time to recognise trauma (let’s not forget Mary, who saw her son torn apart by scourges and nails), a time to cry out “This is wrong” and “That shouldn’t have happened” and “Never again”.

This is a time to acknowledge, in the silence, that the world isn’t as it should be, that the future is frightening, that oppression and persecution are real, that things are broken. This is not a time to pretend that pain isn’t a present reality, that troubles are simply the result of faithlessness. Your pain is real. But while this may sound naive and impossible, it’s not the end of the story.

Because Holy Saturday isn’t a nihilistic full stop. It’s part of something bigger, of which pain is a part but so’s hope. That spluttering candle glimmer may be faint but it’s there, the light at the end of a narrow tunnel. It’s Saturday, as the preacher might have said, but Sunday’s coming.

We have to hold on to a vision of hope, all of us, because even if we’re not going through our own dark night of the soul, we can stand in solidarity with those who are, we can weep and march and sit and pray and stand with others. There are too many paid-off guards peddling fake news and weaponised visions, and so we need Holy Saturday to remind us that our own pain and history and honesty can be a beacon, so many Marys in the garden who’ve seen the stone rolled away.

Today we sit and mourn, and while we may still be doing that come the dawn, we’ve made it through the day, and the sun still rises.