Holy Nights and Christmas Blues

     I love Christmas, especially being close to family and friends and kids from all directions. I'm a sucker for Christmas movies, especially the variations on Dickens (thank you, Bill Murray and the makers of SCROOGED!). I enjoy choosing presents for loved ones, and delight in their getting them, though not without a little anxiety on my part to see if I chose well. The December ritual of getting and sending cards is yet another thing that cheers me on these cold gray days.

     I tend to be a positive person, probably annoyingly so to some. Nevertheless, I sometimes get the Christmas blues. The song, "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas," sung bluesy and slow, can bring me to tears. Why? Often I'm not aware of any specific thing bothering me, but at other times I am. It's the gap between what is and what I wish life were, for me and the rest of the world. The last line of "I'll Be Home For Christmas," is "...if only in my dreams," and I think of service men and women and their distant families in this season.

     One of the great persons of the last century was blessed Dorothy Day. Her journey took her from midwest normal family life to radical journalism and activism and finally to conversion and the founding of THE CATHOLIC WORKER newspaper ("a penny a copy") and movement. Dorothy's radical charity and pacifism appealed to the Quaker artist Fritz Eichenberg and he donated some stunning free art to the newspaper (http://sacredartpilgrim.com/collection/view/19).
One of his most powerful images was "The Christ of the Breadlines," in which a haloed Christ, broken and bowed, stands in line with other destitute people waiting for food. Another Eichenberg image was an unusual nativity scene:  all kinds of poor people, kids and adults, just outside the unseen stable of Jesus' birth, drawn by the light from within. Quite an image.

     If I were to imagine an Eichenberg nativity scene for our era, I see figures like kids of all races and immigrant status', homeless veterans, mentally challenged folks, displaced workers from closed factories, bullied gay young people, alcoholics and addicts and their families, despondent people who'd thought of suicide in recent dark nights -- all the broken, grieving and lonely people who look for some kind of light, some kind of hope, some prospect at least of joy ahead.

     I know a New York City firefighter whose own response to the attacks of 9-11 included funding a second child in a major overseas charity he supports. He made some light out of a dark time.

     If it's hard for you to find light in this season, make some. Reach out. Connect. The world could use it. Happy holidays.