A Complicated Christmas

Faith, hope and the in-between: A story about muddling

It’s Christmas time again, and most of us are dealing with a plethora of emotions right now. There are so many things I love about this time of year, but there always seems to be sadness to deal with too. This year, our family had a fracture that hasn’t mended and so our Christmas is going to look very different than in years past. It’s hard not to be sad about that. When people whom you have loved as best you can decide to end their relationship with you, it’s deeply painful. So I’ve just allowed myself to feel that sadness and acknowledge its existence rather than try to push it away.

Instead of forcing our past holiday traditions and pretending everything is as it should be, we are changing it up and doing some different things this year. Some new things. Maybe we will find new traditions. Who knows how it will all play out, but one thing I know won’t help - not embracing the reality we are left with in the here and now. I know we aren’t the only ones. Some are having their first Christmas without a parent, a spouse, a child. Some are having Christmas dinner in a hospital cafeteria as they sit beside a loved one who is ill. (We did that one year.) Some are sitting home alone, again. All those Christmas movies and commercials that show big holiday gatherings with everyone smiling and having fun, well… I’m not saying they don’t happen, but I believe they are much more rare than I used to think.

One of my favorite Christmas songs is “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”. A melancholy melody with lyrics that are nostalgic for the past and hopeful for the future. It’s all about dealing with the in-between. In-between emotions, in-between dreams, in-between circumstances. It’s a love song about dealing with the present, while aching for a different reality. It’s about faith and hope that one day, things will be better.

I only recently found out that the song was written for a scene in the movie, Meet Me in St. Louis, starring Judy Garland as Esther, the second-oldest sister of the Smith family, who are preparing to leave their lives and relationships in St. Louis to move to New York City. They are all heartbroken that they have to leave. Esther sings this song to her little sister Tootie to try and comfort her, but you can see how sad they both are. Here’s the scene:

I guess I love it so much because it feels like the real-est of all Christmas songs. Christmas is complicated for most people. At least it is for all the people I know. It’s not just peace, joy and love. It’s not just the miracle of the birth of Jesus. It’s not just parties, presents and Christmas cheer. Real-life Christmas is an emotional cauldron. You may have moments of happiness, excitement and joy, but it’s usually mixed with stress, sadness, loneliness, heartbreak, disappointment and even depression.

There is an original lyric to this song that says, “Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.” The last sentence was replaced later with “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough,” but I actually like the original lyric better. I think many people can relate to muddling through the season. It’s not all bad, but it’s not all beautiful either. So, we muddle through it, with just enough faith and hope and trust to get by.

Muddling feels like the in-between. Truth be told, I think I land there most of the year. I don’t live my life in complete faith and trust that everything will work out for the best all the time, but I certainly don’t live in constant despair either.

On top of the complications of human issues, many are struggling with the complications of faith.

A few years ago I was right in the middle of deep faith deconstruction and Christmas was extra complicated for me. None of it felt holy to me. The Christmas story didn’t ring true to me anymore because I was too caught up in all the details of it. Jesus wasn’t really born on December 25th, he probably wasn’t born in a stable, and I wasn’t even sure Mary was a “virgin” in the way that I had been taught. Some accounts say Joseph was a young man, some say he was a much older man, who was Mary’s guardian after she was turned over by her parents at age three to be raised in the temple. So if the traditional Christmas story had all these holes in it, then what was real about the story?

I was reading in my Advent devotional about the faith of Mary this morning. A young Jewish girl who found herself pregnant without a husband. She must’ve been terrified. Then according to the Christmas story in the Bible, an angel came to her to tell her not to be afraid. Some might say that if an angel came personally to visit you, it would be easy to have faith that things were going to work out. But would you… really?

I think I might doubt that I really saw an angel. I’d probably wonder if it was a dream, or maybe some kind of hallucination, because honestly, how many people were getting visits from angels? Did she consider going to her rabbi and asking them what to do? What would her rabbi have said? My guess is he would have told her she was crazy. “What did you say, young lady? An angel came and told you that you were carrying the son of God? Hahaha!” Or maybe he might accuse her of making it all up to cover up the fact that she had sex outside of marriage. However he would have reacted, I doubt he would have offered her support. So she couldn’t count on her rabbi to help her.

Did she have a deep theological understanding to rely on? Nope. Mary was probably a teenager, probably illiterate, and there was no Bible in her bedside drawer to read anyway, so turning to scriptures or theological studies to get her through wasn’t in the cards.

What about her parents? Could they help her with her faith in God during this unsettling time? I always found it odd that Mary’s parents were never even mentioned in the Bible. However, we know from apocryphal writings that Mary’s parents were named Joachim and Anne and they were descendents of the Tribe of Levi. In the Gospel of James, aka The Protoevangelium of James, it is written that Mary’s birth was announced by an angel too. Sounds like maybe this “angel announcing pregnancies” is more common than I thought! Ha. But seriously, I’m assuming they weren’t a lot of help to Mary since they apparently sent her to live in the temple from the age of 3 on - and they aren’t even mentioned in the Bible.

Did she have girlfriends to talk to about all of this? I doubt it. Growing up in a temple probably didn’t lend itself to a lot of sleepovers with friends as a teenager.

So what strengthened her faith in this time of crisis? If she couldn’t look to outside sources, there is only one other option: Her own knowing of God. She trusted her own inner experience with the Spirit.

Mary’s “yes” was said in the darkness of faith. She was not certain, nor assured by any Scripture quote, doctrine or pope. She just heard what she heard, and did what God asked her to do, accepting the consequences. She had enough inner authority to not need a lot of outer authority.

Perhaps theology itself

is not the necessary path

but simply integrity and courage.¹

Many religions emphasize that having the right beliefs about God, Jesus and the Bible are crucial for our eternal consequences. Of course the “right” beliefs are their particular beliefs. However, after being a part of many different religions in my life and learning about even more, I’ve come to realize that a belief system isn’t faith at all. That brings me so much comfort. I don’t worry anymore about getting all the details of theology correct, because I believe God is with us in the in-between, while we figure out what religious beliefs work for us and bring us closer to the Sacred. Yes, God will honor our muddling through. I feel that deeply in my soul these days.

So if you are “muddling through” anything right now - your faith, your relationships, the holidays, whatever - just keep going. Life isn’t perfect and it never will be. But the good news is that we have hope, faith and love to carry us through. And I don’t mean around us, although I definitely believe we can find it around us when we have eyes that see. However, I mean IN us. It’s the same spirit in us that carried Mary through her uncertain times. It’s the same spirit that even Jesus had inside of him. It is the Divine Spirit of our Creator and every single one of us has it.

This “knowing” is what I wish for all of you this year.

It’s where true peace, hope and joy exist. It’s the one thing that isn’t complicated for me anymore.

So, whether in your lonely, silent night or your overwhelming, complicated day, may you all feel that connection with God IN you.

Merry Christmas, darlings. You aren’t muddling alone.

Love… M

1. quote from Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent by Richard Rohr