- Christmas Eve Services at 7pm
- Christmas Day Quiet Prayer 9-10am
- Christmas Adopt-a-Family Tree gifts are due next Sunday
- We are beginning our collections for Fuel Assistance for local families in need
- Death Cafe January 24th at 4pm (we meet monthly)
- Discussion Circle is the Last Sunday after Church.
- Bible Study with Seth 1st & 3rd Sundays after Church (no 12/21)
Visit our Calendar of Events to learn more.
Our Sunday Reflection is recorded and can be found HERE (posts each Sunday late morning or early afternoon.
This is one of my favorite Sundays. We get to pull out the pink in the middle of the more somber and dark and dreary days of December. We get to think pastel in the season of dark, earthy tones. We get to think flowering and blooming in the midst of hibernation and rooting down. And we get to focus on Joy.
Joy in the midst of Sacred Waiting. Joy in the midst of our lives, however they are unfolding in the moment. It’s a Sunday that both fits really well with what is and really kind of, well, clashes with what is.
It echoes the tension of this season. The both, and. The joy in the sorrow. The darkness in the light. The yes in the no. The laughter and the tears.
I love to laugh. I also like to cry. I love a good joke. I love the bubbling up and letting go that happens when we let ourselves just burst out with joyous laughter. Those moments when don’t hold back or overthink. I’ve been told (once or maybe twice—people have lots of opinions) that this work is too serious for laughter. It’s sober work, somber, quiet, calm. It is serious work. Important work. I’d argue that it’s too important to take so very, very seriously. And I’m not alone.
I think Joy Sunday, Rejoicing, is a reminder to not get too serious about our fasting and our penitence and our praying. I think it’s a reminder to not get too serious about what we’re doing wrong and what we’re doing right.
That we listen to the Stories, and we learn from the Stories. But don’t take them too too seriously. So seriously that we forget that there is Joy to be received and given. So seriously that we forget gentleness and kindness are foundation stones of Love. So seriously that we forget that there is a baby Jesus right around the corner. Babies change the perspective…Joy and Hope and Laughter!
This is paradox and tension. The both, and. Yes it is incredibly important and serious. But it is also…not.
The whole Story holds paradox in tension. With birth, every birth, there is death. PAUSE With humanity, there is divinity. One of my favorite ponderings is that “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. (author debated)”. Both, and…
I do like to laugh and smile. I also love to cry.
Maybe love is a strong word, but anyone who has not been able to cry can probably understands what I am trying to say.
There is so much pressure, sometimes literally, that builds up when we can’t let it go. It gets bottled up and we start feeling “bad” and we start thinking unhealthy things.
After one of my hardest deaths, I found myself unable to cry. I found myself stuck in my grief and unable to let it go. The pressure built up. The fear built up. I felt weak. I felt terrible. I felt alone. I felt as if I was the only one. I mention this because sometimes we think we are the only ones; sometimes we think it doesn’t happen to “strong people”.
I also felt like if I let it go, I might never be able to stop. Usually not true. We often need a good, long cry. We often need a good long nap too!
In The Holiday, a favorite Christmas-time movie, the character Amanda can’t cry after a traumatic childhood experience. As an adult, she tries and she tries, but she just can’t do it. It is bottled up inside and she has these terrible anxiety attacks and heart palpitations. The pressure spills over into the way she lives her life and treats the people around her (especially herself). Eventually, it would all probably start to manifest as disEase. Fortunately, it’s a joyful love movie and everything turns out in the end. Phew!
But it does highlight the problem with not being able to express pain.
I think God and the Universe cries. Maybe not in the same way we do as embodied beings, but I think God and the Universe weep (maybe they weep through us; maybe they need us to weep to weep through us). God and the Universe are not weak or fearful or lonely.
We are meant to move through a full range of emotions. We are embodied human begins, spiritual beings, gifted a full range of wonderful (and terribly wonderful) emotions. To have faith is to walk with one another. With Compassion. Compassion means to suffer with.
I think we also are meant to Joyously walk with. Both, and.
We are in company together with a full range of life experiences and emotions. We walk together with full Love. Not a fluffy, smooffy weak, pretending love, but a Love that is deep enough to not exclude the hard emotions or the soft emotions.
It’s okay to laugh.
It’s okay to cry.
Let’s leave with a thought to ponder. Saint John of the Cross is the author of Dark Night of the Soul, which was written after he was tortured, tormented, and cruelly imprisoned. It is a poem that is sometimes reflected on during the Advent Season. It is a poem that explores the idea that in order to truly find and connect with God, we must go through suffering.
One might wonder what kind of person these experiences and thoughts would mold John into, but it was said that his brothers always hoped John would join them in prayer and discussion…because…he always…laughed and made them laugh.
With the dark side, there is the light. Both, and.
The fullness of expression includes Joy, and Hope, and Peace, and Love. Kindness and gentleness. Compassion and deep tender forgiveness. Walking with and walking beside. It’s universal. You, me, and we. Together with Joy!
Community Church of North Orange & Tully 