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Tripping The Light
Fantastic Rev. Holly Baylies December 17, 2006 My niece thinks they are beautiful. I think they are a disgrace! There is a section in every town at Christmas time, that competes for the most outrageous light display ever recorded since the first light bulb glowed in Thomas Edison’s shop! Maybe it’s some kind of a contagious disease that infiltrates unsuspecting victims, generated through the excess of electrical current and passed from one neighbor to the next until the entire neighborhood is infected. Every year it gets worse, like this year the invasion of all those lawn inflatables that don’t inflate during the day and lie around like multi -colored dead things, lawn kill, if you will, waiting for the coroner to take them away! I am a fan of single candles in the windows and a real green wreath on the door. With good reason. I am a decorators nightmare! However there was the year that my whole neighborhood was lit up. Everyone, except for me. My mother had just died and I was not feeling particularly Christmassy. That year , I decided to move my grief aside and do something normal, finally taking my own advise that I had spouted off over the years to so many parishioners in my situation. I finally succumbed to the pressure, or blight
or whatever it was that changed normal everyday people into swirling,
blinking, flashing utility mongers and I too would light up my mother's
house, for the first time. My attempt confirmed that there was absolutely not an ounce of Martha Stewart in me, no decorator genes at all and it was very possible that even after the whole thing was put up, someone with less taste than I, would ask me to please take it down. As I expected the end result was the epitome of bad taste, even in a tacky environment, my display was the worst of the worst, an eyesore among eyesores. My house did indeed stand out amid the rest. Not because there were too many lights but too few, haphazardly scattered about in all the wrong places! Obviously my very first public statement of the celebration of Christmas was a miserable failure! As I finally stood in the street and looked back at the sparseness of my endeavors, I asked myself, “why did I even bother?” I relayed the story of my sad fiasco, to my fellow ministers at a monthly gathering of “The Reverend Mothers” as we called ourselves and they all laughed and agreed, it sounded awful, everyone that is except Lucinda Duncan, Minister of the Follen Church in Lexington. She repeated my words several times, “Why bother? “ She finally repeated once more, “What if the shepherds just looked up at the angel and said, ‘Hey go bug someone else, we’ve had a long day…were not going anywhere!’ What if the wise men took one look at the map and the star and decided that it was just too far to travel; stars come and go, no big deal, besides it’s just some poor kid and his parents stuffed into a manger in a cave…maybe next time! And so on, until the idea of Christmas never happened because no one could be bothered to be there to make it happen.” Lucinda had a point. My display may have been a disaster, but in that time when I dragged out my pathetic idea of lighting up my house, my soul ceased to mourn and it went to other places… to those individuals that I needed to remember, whose kindness helped me get through a tough time. Not just at the end, but who bothered to give me a call, to come over when I needed help, to comfort when there was no hope, and who held my hand when it was all over. I thought back to those who bothered with Christmas, who went out of their way with no fanfare or fuss, to make my memories so precious. First there was that mysterious armless porcelain Rosie O’Neal Cupie Doll that always swung on our tree with a gold thread strung through her torso, which held some kind of unspoken special meaning for my mother, passed on to her by her mother. In spite of its obvious handicap, and its secrets, it was an honor to be the one to place it on the tree. It seemed to have some kind of magical quality as it made my mother so happy to see it every year. Many of her memories have become mine and I am so glad she bothered to pass on so many of our traditions that are still shared by our family gatherings.The happy little armless Cupie will be passed on to my sister this year and then to her daughter in turn. I hope it brings them the same joy as it did my mother. Occasionally I detect a whiff of gingerbread,
and the memory of all those houses we made every year. Some were
lopsided, others were droopy, some left a trail of crumbs, a mouse
nibbled on one, but the house I remember the most completely fell apart.
It turned out to be the very best one as my mother cheerfully stuffed a
hunk in her mouth and said, “perfect gingerbread houses never get eaten,
do they?” I learned that failure always has its advantages! Later on in life, I discovered that my beloved aunt who owned a jewelry business, and traveled every Christmas eve from New York City to Boston by train to be with the family on Christmas day, was not only the bearer of that special gift from Santa for each of us, but she gave very generous bonuses to each of her twenty employees that came to her directly from Schindler’s list during WWII. I did not discover this until after her death. She never spoke of it. I’m am sure that they were very glad that she bothered. I am also aware that for too many, much of our world today, at Christmastime is filled with sad memories, of those whose families didn’t bother at all, who would never have participated in the first Christmas story, by simply refusing to move from their flocks and fields had they lived 2000 years ago. Of any celebration, Christmas is the one that invites the greatest joys or the deepest of disappointments, felt by those who have been let down by their expectation that someone really cared and was willing to go the extra mile, without complaint, or a constant reminder of the inconvenience. It is the one time of year when all of our resources are challenged, especially our capacity to bother with the details, that good or bad, will someday become the heritage we pass on. Christmas is about being bothered and bothering. On that one of several difficult Christmases, I decided to leave my porch lights as they were and not take them down. I actually left them up all winter much to the chagrin of my neighbors. The kids loved them just as my niece loves that gaudy display in the next town we are drawn to check out every year. My lights, as pathetic as they were, still lit my pathway to and from a nightly walk. They represented my harmless weaknesses and faults and although they were only a very meager glow in the darkness, just as our universe peeks out from behind the dusk. It was a reminder that every so often any light that dispels the darkness of despair is good even if it is done poorly or to excess. Lets face it, the first Christmas was also done poorly! There are very few stage managers today who would have conjured up such drab scenery and simple props had there been no such script to follow. All of our own props have little to do with the real story, what really preserves our traditions are those that remind us that someone bothered to go out of their way to prove to us that we were special, be it on Christmas, the 4th of July or just on one ordinary day for no reason in particular. Who cares if the lights are crooked, or the most
treasured of ornaments has no arms, or if the universe remains a mystery
and the gingerbread falls apart.? That is the gift and the message that has been passed down for over 2000 years…and there is nothing anyone can do to change what we remember, but we can alter the memories of those to come and set the tone for future celebrations by how we choose to be bothered or not. I have one wish for you this year and for those
to come…be bold, do your thing in gladness…trip the light
fantastic…welcome the opportunity and be glad you took the time to be
bothered! |
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