Holidays Are Not Always Easy

November 17, 2011

Holidays Are Not Always Easy

Sometimes I am sad when I should be happy. Sometimes I am down when I ought to be up. I wonder if you, too, struggle with your feelings not living up to what you or what others expect. The holidays especially can be an emotional roller coaster. When my daughter Dayna died our whole world changed, and especially the holidays. She was full of such love and fun and life. Nothing was ever the same again. That’s when I first knew that holidays aren’t always happy times for everyone.

Fredrick Buechner in his book, Listening to Your Life, reflects on the funeral of the twelve-year-old daughter of a man named Jairus (Mark 5:35-43). If you know the story you know that Jesus shows up in the middle of the funeral, takes the little girl’s hand, and tells her to “get up,” and she does! What Buechner writes that struck me so very personally was that it’s okay to weep all the tears that are in us when we suffer loss, because something precious and irreplaceable has come to an end and something in us has come to an end with it. Yet, he goes on to write that death is no more permanent than sleep and that while death is the closing of one door, it is the opening of another. Buechner wants us to hear Jesus saying to us, “Get up.” Buechner wants us  to take the hand that Jesus extends to us through the many people and graces in our lives, so that we can get up.

As the holidays approach, I give myself permission to feel whatever I am feeling. I let myself remember and feel. The holidays I have treasured from my past are precious and irreplaceable. Yet, other new and equally precious doors open to me every day. There is a time to mourn and there is a time to celebrate, and sometimes our feelings don’t correspond with the season of the year.

On Saturday, December 17, at 7:00 p.m. at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church you are invited to gather with us for a Service of Lights to remember those we love who have died by the lighting of candles on the altar. Through scripture and prayer, through the companionship of others we will rekindle the light of hope. The sanctuary will be lit by candle light and the walks by luminaries. Following the service we will walk to the parish house to enjoy our annual lighting of the Christmas Tree. This year music will be provided by our youth Red Door Band and refreshments will be served in the hall.

If like me you are remembering those persons or season in your life that are no longer with you, I offer this prayer from a Hebrew Book of Prayers:

We Remember Them with Love

In the rising of the sun and its going down, we remember them.

In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, we remember them.

In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring, we remember them.

In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer, we remember them.

In the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn, we remember them.

In the beginning of every succeeding year and when it ends, we remember them.

When we are weary and in need of strength, we remember them.

When we have joys and celebrations we yearn to share, we remember them.

So long as we live, they too shall live, for they are now a part of us,

as we remember them with love. Amen.