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Finding Joy in December December 4, 2005 The Reverend Roger Fritts Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church Bethesda, Maryland December is the Advent season. Although Thanksgiving should have filled me with joy, some days I feel like Scrooge. Some days the sky is gray, with cold rain. Darkness comes early in the afternoon. A positive outlook is hard to sustain. When I read the newspaper, I see stories about kidnapings and executions, earthquakes and floods, bribes and corruption, bird flu and greenhouse gases. I do not feel the joy of Christmas. In a grumpy mood, I do things I regret. As I walk down a sidewalk on a cold December day, rain penetrates my clothing. A driver honks his horn at me as I try to cross the road. “What’s his problem?” I wonder. The driver honks again. Forgetting for a moment my role as a minister, I pull my hand out of my pocket, planning to use a hand gesture I learned in junior high. But as I begin to raise my hand, I look into the car. I realize the driver is a church member trying to give me a friendly wave. It is not easy to be friendly on a wet, cold December day. On television I observe ads for perfume that follow news from the gulf coast and Pakistan. “Share the fantasy” says a voice, smooth and pompous. Following pictures of death in Iraq is an ad for an Espresso-Cappuccino-Latte Maker. “What will they think of next?” said a voice over, unmindful of priorities. There are many ads of clean shaven men using electric razors. I felt they are aimed personally at me. It is difficult to be merry. In a magazine I read sad stories. A teenager killed a mother in a random shooting. A factory poisoned a river in China. A clergyman molested a child. An arsonist set a fire. A businessman gave himself a raise and closed a factory. It is hard to be joyful. One Saturday morning during advent I arrive at church early to finish a sermon about giving thanks for food. Standing at the door is a stranger. He says, “I need to see the minister.” “This is a bad time, for me,” I say. The man says, “It is a bad time for me too. My baby, my wife and I have no money, no food and no place to sleep.” Remembering a story from two thousand years ago, I let him into my office. Setting the sermon preparation aside, I began to review the options. All the social service agencies are closed on Saturday morning. The shelters that have rooms would not open until late in the day and it was cold outside. Many shelters would not take families. I called the cheap hotel where he, his wife and baby had sleep last night. The manager confirmed the man’s story. “I let them stay here for four days,” said the manager. “They have paid me nothing.” I asked, “If I give you a check, will you let them stay at least through the weekend?” The manager agreed and I wrote out a personal check. Later I will get reimbursed from the minister’s discretionary fund. The man looked at me with pleading eyes. He said, “My baby has no diapers. We have no food. Could you possibly spare a little money?” I locked my office, drove him to a nearby CVS, bought him $30 in supplies, and dropped him back at his beat up car here at the church. My heart sank as I realized that for every person I help, there are many more I do not help. It is not always easy to sing “Good Will to All.” As the days grew colder, I come home from a meeting to find the kitchen filled with dirty dishes. My 23 year-old son has left for a class at the university. My wife is at work. My 19 year-old-son has gone out to apply for a job. My 15 year old daughter is studying for an algebra test. So I set to work washing dishes left from a meal that I did not eat. When I finish, I get in bed to read a new biography of Franz Kafka. (It got good reviews in the Post.) Another day I get a message that a church member is at a hospital. Because of the amount of time involved in the drive, first I call the hospital. They confirm that the member is there and give me his room number. I drive to the hospital and park my car. It is another gray day. Huddled against the cold wind, I find the building. After waiting a long time for an elevator, I finally arrive at the correct floor and walk to the room. The name is on the door but the church member is not in the room. I walk to the nurse’s station. “He went home today,” they tell me. “But I called an hour ago and an operator told me he was still here.” “His name is still in the computer. Sorry.” I want to complain. But around me there are people in beds, people in wheelchairs, people on crutches and a staff of hospital workers taking care of them. I stuff my anger and walk back to the elevator. A young woman is on a bed by the elevator, waiting to be wheeled to physical therapy. Together we wait, agreeing that the elevator is incredibly slow. I ask her about her injury. “I was in an auto accident,” she says. I say to her, “I have never had anything like that happen to me. What is it like for you?” She replied “Of course, there are moments when I am despondent and depressed. But, as I lie in bed, in my imagination I can see the faces of the people who love me. I can see the face of my mother and my father, the face of my husband, the face of my daughter. I can feel their support. In my imagination those people are always holding me and saying to me ‘I love you. Get better.’” “Good for you,” I say, “Good for you.” “Soon,” she tells me, smiling, “I can go home to my family.” I leave the hospital, walking through the crowded lobby and parking lot. I notice that everywhere I look there are smells, sounds, movements, lights. I see the faces I pass, strong faces, tired faces, young faces, old faces. Some people have worried looks, but many smile. I breath in the color and the sounds of the day. Above me a worker is stringing Christmas lights in a tree. From one place comes the smells of popcorn. I thought about the woman, a stranger back in the hospital on a stretcher. I remember her words. She said, “As I lie in bed, in my imagination I can see the faces of the people who love me. I can relive in my imagination those people holding me and saying to me ‘I love you.’” Later that day, on a sidewalk I hear the sounds of a man dressed in a Santa suit ringing a bell. I put a dollar in his Salvation Army pot as a way of saying thank-you to the woman on the stretcher in the hospital. It is not easy to be grumpy all the time. The winter is beginning. The night before Thanksgiving my children call to me to look outside. It snowed. I remember the first snow of a December 13 years ago when my daughter was only two years old. It had snowed in the night and I was awakened by my daughter coming to the side of my bed carrying my size twelve winter boots. “Boots,” she shouted. “Sox,” she announced. She wanted to go out and play in the snow. “Rachel,” I explained, “My boots are too big for you to wear.” When I came home from church that evening Rachel and Leslie had gone to the shoe store. She had her own pair of new white boots with purple trim. When she heard me come through the door she ran to show me. “Boots,” she showed me with glee. That night she insisted on sleeping with her new boots on. It is impossible to be grouchy in the presence of a smiling two year old. An there is the joy of the Christmas tree. Last Saturday Leslie, our eldest son Loren, and I drove an hour north to a place called Hardees Tree Farm. We were on our annual trek to cut down a Christmas tree. Historians do not know when the first pine tree was taken into a home in December, but one theory is that the people in Europe did so in pagan rituals long before the birth of Jesus. Placing evergreens in the home was a way to celebrate the Winter Solstice. Following that tradition we place a green tree in our home. So, at my request, we headed to Hardees Tree Farm, a place we had never been to before. The owner of the farm, John Theofield, is about 77 years old and has been growing Christmas trees since 1959. I met him on a very hot day last August at the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair. August seems like an odd time to look at Christmas trees, but these were beautiful trees. Part of my pessimism at Christmas comes from driving through holiday traffic. I asked Mr. Theofield if he delivered Christmas trees. I could tell that he was not impressed by this lazy city guy who wanted his tree brought to his door. He told me I had to come and get my own. After the fair I looked to see which farmers had won the prizes for the best Christmas trees, based on types of trees. For the Concolor Fir, 1st prize went to John Theofield. For Blue Spruce, 1st prize - John Theofield. For the category Other Spruce, 1st prize - John Theofield. For White Pine, 1st prize - John Theofield. For Scotch Pine, 1st prize - John Theofield. For Other Pines, 1st prize - John Theofield. And Douglas Fir, 3rd prize - John Theofield. As soon as we got to the farm, Leslie spotted a white pine that she liked. I convinced her to walk with me to the grove of concolor firs, also called the white fir. I had overheard Mr. Theofield talk to another tree grower at the fair about how difficult it was to grow a concolor fir and how it took 12 years to grow into a Christmas tree instead of the usual eight years. I had read about the concolor fir, about how it is native to the western United States and may reach sizes of 130-150 ft. in height and 3 to 4 ft. in diameter. I read that the oldest concolor firs may reach 350 years of age. The young needles are bluish-green. The bark on younger trees is thin, smooth, and gray. Deer feed on the buds and leaves during the winter, porcupines eat the bark, and squirrels are fond of the seeds. Because the wood of the tree lacks a distinctive odor, it was used by settlers for tubs in which to store butter. As a Christmas tree, the concolor fir has good foliage color, a pleasing natural shape and aroma, and good needle retention. We walked a considerable distance through the rows of trees until we found the stand of concolor firs. We walked in the cold bright sunlight looking at the firs for a time. Then we walked back to the car and cut down the white pine Leslie liked. (One of the workers said we were typical. Eighty percent of the people eventually select the first tree that they liked, even if they look, as we had, for an hour.) Sill I was glad for the long walk. That day the sunlight, the beauty of the trees, the smell of the pines, the cold air all filled me with joy. It is not easy to be a Scrooge all the time. It is the second Sunday of Advent, a time of confident expectation. Advent encourages us to have faith, hope, love, and joy. We need these feelings all year, every day of our lives. However, it is especially important to look for signs of joy at this time of year as the daylight grows shorter, the air grows colder, and colds and flu fill the air. Sometimes joy comes in unanticipated places. For me it came from a conversation with a woman in a hospital while waiting for the elevator. It came from a drive down a city street hung with lights and ribbons. It came from the memory of a child with a new pair of boots. It came from roaming through a Christmas tree farm, looking for the perfect tree for our living room. In unexpected places, I find my spirits lifted. It is not always easy to be happy during the holiday season. The gatherings of friends and families remind us of past Decembers, of those who have died, of friends we have lost. However, if we unlock our eyes and our ears, if we take a deep breath and smell and feel the December air, if we search our memories for good times, we may find that it is hard to be grumpy all the time. The miracle of life, the colors of the season, the smells of pine trees and wood fires, the sounds of children are all around us. We need only open our hearts to the wonder of life that is all around us and within us. |
Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist
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