"Tidings of Light"
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Cookeville
21 December 2008

Today is the first day of winter and the first night of Hanukkah. The winter solstice took place at about five minutes after 6 a.m. this morning, and tonight thousands of Jews will light the first candles in their menorahs. Mind you, "tonight" is a relative term -- it's before noon, here where we are, but it's already past sundown in Japan and New Zealand, and probably in London and Paris as well, so the festival of lights is already formally underway in much of the world.

It's a day that's laden with a lot of symbolic freight, in a season both blessed and fraught with rituals. I confess that I am profoundly ambivalent about solstice, Hanukkah, and Christmas on both a religious and practical level. Theology-wise, I wrestle with the concept of "holidays" in general, in large part because I'd rather see more of us celebrating the inherent holiness of ordinary, everyday life. I am ill at ease with the implication that a day that happens to coincide with a certain perception of the sun, or the anniversary of a siege, or the birth of a purported messiah -- take your pick -- is so much more special or important than tomorrow or last Wednesday or the day after next Valentine's day. There is no such thing as an all-inclusive holiday, no matter how well-intentioned its organizers and practitioners may be, and every year I witness friends and acquaintances being pressed to explain and justify why "x" holiday tradition isn't for them, often to other friends and acquaintances who cannot comprehend how it's possible for something that matters so much to them to not provide comfort and joy to everyone else. On the logistical level, I sometimes fantasize about shifting my festivity-related exertions to some holiday that isn't part of the end-of-the-year pile-up, such as Shavuot or Simchat Torah, especially given how, every year, it feels like there's more to do and less time to fit it in. By now, I know from the get-go that I'm not going to get to everything before January 1st, and there's a part of me that kind of wishes that there was a longer stretch of time for Christmas-related goings-on. I'm traditional enough that seeing Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving makes me grind my teeth, but I'd also like to be able to write more cards, sing more carols, attend more parties, plot more surprises, and generally glide through December like a serene, graceful swan instead of skittering through it like an overcaffeinated squirrel.

That said, I love how these holidays carry with them customs and traditions that help people maintain, sustain, and enrich the connections among us. There are people with whom I exchange Christmas cards whom I see maybe once every ten or twenty years, as well as some whom I've not yet managed to meet in person. Some of these connections are unquestionably on the slender side -- not especially strong or significant on their own -- and they're people whom I wouldn't feel comfortable contacting outside of seasonal greetings, because it would feel presumptuous or weird, which is why they're still getting Christmas cards from me instead of ones commemorating Simchat Torah. But I do like how, during this time of year, I get to see photos of children whose parents I knew back in grade school, as well as snapshots of mountains I'll never climb from my more adventurous acquaintances. I'm enchanted by the glorious range of holiday card designs, and I'm fascinated by the variety of messages transmitted -- even though some of those messages frankly give me indigestion. There are two types of holiday notes that don't sit well with me: one is the card where the writer can't help indicating that they're sending it under duress. It's no fun being made to feel like you're someone else's chore. The other type that makes me squirm is the evangelical Christian testimony, and the irony is, they make me far less inclined to welcome Christianity's presence in my life, never mind ever converting to it. They remind me that I am not a Christian, and that Christmas at its most basic level is not my holiday. It's certainly not the message that's intended, but it's a timeless example of how one person's comfort and joy is another person's source of alienation: from an evangelical perspective, to talk about Christ is to tell people about a marvelous opportunity to be part of an enduring relationship -- and I have seen this promise of Christianity provide people with the courage and centeredness to do what they needed to do, and to become their better selves. I would never want to take that away from them. Even so, that promise is not for me, and to insist -- however innocuously -- that I should subscribe to a faith that does not fit me ultimately makes me feel more distant and separate from Christ and his followers rather than bringing me into their fold. I am uncomfortably aware that I would not have been one of the shepherds abandoning their sheep to go visit a baby in a manger on the word of an angel. Nor would I have thought well of a king appropriating resources and treasures from his country to chase after some star in the east, however unusual and spectacular.

And yet I adore the carols we're singing today ["Angels We Have Heard on High" and "The First Nowell"], which are about these shepherds and kings and angels, and I'm fond of the story of Hanukkah -- about the one day's supply of oil that lasted for eight days -- even though my inner empiricist gets restless and twitchy whenever miracles are discussed in terms of destiny rather than extreme good luck or undiscerned scientific realities. I take particular pleasure in the tradition of situating menorahs in doorways and windows, such that their lights are visible from the street; the rabbinical rationale for doing so is to publicize the miracle of Hanukkah, but I like to think of it in terms of sharing a gift of light with the rest of the world. In a similar vein, it's a lot easier for me to enjoy Christmas when I keep in mind how it offers so many of us opportunities to indulge our impulses toward kindness. Many of these opportunities exist during the rest of the year, of course, but just as the season's traditions facilitate people staying in touch with each other, its stories lift up and amplify the many ways in which we can share our resources with those less fortunate. Nashville's primary interfaith effort to help the homeless is called Room in the Inn, in which over 150 congregations provide food and shelter to hundreds of people during the winter; there are myriad other campaigns and initiatives to make it easier for us to give what we can, from the "Guest at Your Table" boxes provided by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee to the food collection tubs at various grocery stores. [ETA: There are also "Room in the Inn" programs in Charlotte, Chattanooga, Lexington (KY), and likely elsewhere as well.]

There's been a lot of talk over the past couple years about a popular self-help book called The Secret, and about the "Law of Attraction" it espouses. One of the major criticisms against The Secret is how it suggests that victims are to blame for their own problems, since the general idea is that what you think about is responsible for what you get, whether it's something happy or something horrible. Now, I am definitely oversimplifying the stances of both the pro- and anti-Secret camps in this potted summary, just as I over-generalized about the motives of evangelical Christians earlier in this sermon, and it's not my intent to change anyone's mind specifically about that book. I do, however, to focus your attention -- at least for the moment -- on how our attitudes toward the universe do indeed color how we read the messages we receive from its various elements, and even what we consider "messages" in the first place. How many of you have had one of those days when everything kept going haywire and you finally said, "I bet the universe is trying to tell me something"? On the flip side of the coin, how many of you have witnessed someone obtaining what they wanted, because they weren't shy about asking for it -- about articulating what mattered to them? My personal belief in God has zero use for the notion that he uses cancer, typhoons, massacres, and other calamities to tell us what he really thinks about gay marriage and NC-17 movies. Although I do believe that the universe is far more complex and multi-layered than I can possibly fathom, I don't have it in me to believe in a God that stupendously mean and communication-challenged. Put another way, I just don't believe that God is that blatant about the things we consider bad or good. There are good people who get cancer, and bad people who escape justice. There is such a thing as rotten luck, and there is the luck of really fortuitous timing. I've been known to pray to God for certain results, but the prayer I most often utter -- the prayer I mean the most -- is the ability to handle whatever comes up in the best way possible, regardless of whatever I happen to be hoping for.

As I was working on this sermon, I received two pieces of spam in my in-box, one with the subject line "Always be ready" and the other with the order, "Don't ignore even the slightest signs of illness." It reminds me of the saying that a broken watch is right twice a day -- there are times when even spam can seem to carry appropriate, relevant messages. My horoscope is sometimes right on the money, and I was given a tarot reading earlier this year that was remarkably direct about answering the questions I'd brought to it, even though my general attitude towards cards and divination is far from serious. I was wandering around London a month ago when I saw two words painted on the side of a building that said, in bold, block letters, "TAKE COURAGE." I don't know who that exhortation was originally intended for, but on a dreary, drizzly day in England, I felt that I was meant to see that sign and then to tell you about it.

Which brings me to the ultimate point of this homily: we are neither angels nor prophets -- at least, not in the mythical, larger-than-life form that they take in the testaments and stories that accompany our holidays and rituals. We do, however, carry messages with us at all times, regardless of our religious orientation or which side of the pulpit we're on at any given moment. One of the things that I've witnessed certain Law of Attraction adherents getting right is their determination to be positive -- that is, to frame everything that happens to them in terms of blessings and opportunities. The more cynical among us would instantly label this sort of activity an extended exercise in "spin," but in my own experience, I have noticed that attitude is frequently a choice, and that it does have a way of influencing the kind of "luck" a person comes into contact with: many of us have encountered individuals so relentlessly negative that they wouldn't recognize good luck if it bopped them on the nose, and we've likewise admired - and perhaps envied - people who seem to have themselves all together all of the time, and who seem both to attract and to radiate good fortune the way honeysuckle calls to bees. Most of us are somewhere in between, and what I want to leave you with today is the awareness that your life is your message to the people around you. I want you to take courage wherever you find it, whether it's from the side of a building or in tales of Maccabeean triumph. I want for you, in the words of a certain angel, to be not afraid. My wish for you all is for your lives to be and become as the Hanukkah lights in windows and doorways as well as the flame of our chalice and the light it shares with our manifold joys and concerns. Among us, we have so many gifts to share: may this winter see our collective courage and generosity bloom. Amen and alleluia.