As sort of a tie-in to my previous post, many people I know agonize over what greeting to use at this time of year. "Merry Christmas" may have been appropriate in a less diverse world. But I basically stopped saying it forty years ago, when I first moved to New York City's Upper West Side. "Happy" Passover or Solstice or Kwanzaa cannot really be said unless you know that someone celebrates the holiday. "Happy Holidays" and "Seasons Greetings", preferable in being more all-inclusive, are just so terribly bland. I mean, they sound, and are, superficial and greeting card-y. The fact is, December (at least in the northern hemisphere) is a "deep" month on so many levels. There is deep darkness, often deep snow. For many people it is a deeply depressing month, or one that triggers hard memories. People miss lost friends and loved ones, and pandemic uncertainty continues to drag us down. And if the calendar year hasn't lived up to expectations, December may be a month of reckoning. Perhaps part of the problem is that wishing people "merry" or "happy" in the depths of winter just may be too jarring or inappropriate, unless you have some sense of what someone is experiencing in their life.
The other day, an alternative possibility came to me, and I'll throw it out there. If December is nothing else, it is a time of mystery. It is a time of year that may encourage introspection even in people not usually prone to it. For someone like me, whose middle name should be "introspection", this time of year is like a deep velvet blue bowl; I want to sink into it, then look at the stars above, and just wonder; What is life all about? Who are we? Are we alone in the Universe? How did Life start? Where are we headed? Will "the light" eventually come back?
Even the bare bones outline of the Christmas story has meaning for me, if I get away from theology and focus on a solitary couple traveling under a starry sky, finding a warm barn, giving birth in the night, and sages traveling, themselves, under the stars, to visit the child. Angelic choirs, simple shepherds...Did these things really happen? It is a mystery, but a beautiful and blessed one. Other traditions' December celebrations weave in and out of mystery too...I was thinking of possibilities like, "A Blessed Mystery to You", or "May You have a Beautiful Season of Mystery". Most of the year, it is natural to try to find answers; maybe this is the one season when we can live more comfortably in the questions, waiting for answers to come in the new year. Maybe this is the time when it is OK to say, "I don't know the answers, it's all a mystery." A Blessed Mystery to you all.
