The Joyful Widower

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Matthew 6:33

It’s no wonder that Christmas time is overwhelming, even in the good times. Though it’s trendy to complain of the commercialization of Christmas (and has been for decades; I remember the Peanuts gang bemoaning it in the 1970s in “It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown!” when they were at the shopping center to get eggs, and the Christmas displays were already out), under the commercial veneer is often a layer of sentimentality. The word “Christmas” is loaded with memories of family gatherings (both happy and not-so-happy), smells, sights, emotions, romance, all kinds of visceral reactions.

All the emotions come out at Christmas, like a strand of colored lights. It’s impossible to separate them; either they all light up, or none of them. If one shorts, they all malfunction. Feelings can be all balled up, like a poorly-packed string of lights from the prior year. And all these tangles are on display for the world to see.

I write this entry on Christmas Eve, in the midst of so many feelings. I’ve had more than 50 Christmases now, adding “emotional bulbs” of all sorts along the way. I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring, or when and how I’ll react to things throughout the day. The kids and I will spend Christmas Day as we have done for the past several years when we’re in town. We’ll get together with good friends for an evening of good food (especially one of my now Christmas favorites, Romanian sarmale, which is stuffed brined cabbage leaves!), good drink, games, puzzles, and talking. My godparents will be joining us as well. But this year there will also be a notable absence.

My feelings are all over the place this year. I’m looking forward to time with these dear friends. I’m looking forward to opening gifts with my children. I’ve included the kids in planning, to make sure we do the things they want to do, have the foods they want, etc. But in the weeks leading up to Christmas I’ve also felt the loneliness, the missing. Christmas shopping was a moment of tremendous grief, because there was one name on my list conspicuous by it absence. And, just as I wrote about in last week’s post, grief ties into grief. Some of the “feels” (as the young people say) from my first Christmas after Melinda’s death are joining the emotional load that this year brings.

I’m finding ways to honor all these feelings and memories. I’m talking with friends. I’m sitting with memories, allowing them to come, as well as tears. Fighting them does no good, but letting them wash over and pass by lessens the pain, which leaves not too long after I allow it to come to the forefront (“it hurts a lot less if you don’t struggle”). I’m fitting in some special baking to have times for these memories. Yesterday I baked pumpkin, date, and pecan bread, one of the treats Melinda liked to make. Today I’m baking Tracy’s family’s wine and cheese bread, taking delight in the smells of yeast and the pleasure of working with bread dough in a warm kitchen. There is a sober joy in entering into these activities, in embracing the loss, in marrying the thoughts and feelings to activity which gives an outlet to the energy and also creates something to share with others. These are all good and healthy things, but I know a more excellent way.

Tonight we shall keep vigil at St. Anne’s. Tomorrow morning we shall attend Divine Liturgy, and receive the Body and Blood of our Savior at the high, solemn feast to celebrate his birth. No matter what the year has brought, I shall take all of it with me to church and offer what I have. Happiness and sorrow comes, every year has a different story, yet the prayers, the songs, the readings are a constant anchor, tying me to Christ and holding me firm in the midst of all that would, for good or ill, wash me away. And I shall seek him, and in seeking, find him. Were I to pursue Christmas without Christ, I would be awash in depression and sorrow and loss. I need not trot out all the clichés about Christmas and its meaning. I’m sure you can fill in this paragraph with them all. But underneath the trite expressions is a truth, that it is only in Christ one finds the fullness of Christmas, of Pascha, of all of creation.

“Seek ye first…” It’s tempting to use this verse as a proof-text, to pursue Christ as a means to an end, as a means to Melinda, to Tracy, to anything else in life that I have counted as lost. Christ will not, cannot, be a means to my ends. I must seek him first and him only, for a person is not a means. I must learn to love him for himself, and not for what I could gain. But paradoxically, in letting go of my expectations, in letting go of my desires, in letting go of my demands and in humbly seeking him, I will, after attaining Christ, find all those who have found him. It is precisely in losing that I’ll find, in giving up that I’ll receive far more blessedness than I could ever ask or imagine. A vessel that is already full cannot be filled; but one that brings emptiness awaits fulfillment, and our God is faithful, He will not leave us empty.

May we each have the grace to lay aside expectations and demands, aspirations and ambitions, to awake, to salute the happy morn, and to rise to adore the mystery of love, Love which empties itself, offers itself, and calls us to do the same.

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

“In the Bleak Midwinter,” Christina Rossetti