Preparing for the Season

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." - Antoine de Saint Exupery

Each year I approach the holiday season with a mixture of joy and dread. Joy, because I truly enjoy, even love, this season of light and story and music, and because I am fortunate to have mostly happy memories of Christmas, the tradition in which, at least in a secular fashion, I grew up. It’s supposed to be a joyful time of year, and for the most part it usually is.

The problem is that, like many of you, I want it to be perfect. That is where the dread comes in. I want to find the perfect gift and to write the most brilliant holiday message. I want to make my loved ones happy, and to make lasting memories. The pressure is pretty intense.

I know that the season is about more than things; certainly it is about more than my feeble efforts to achieve an unattainable perfection. It is even about more than making people happy. But it is easy to get caught up in the superficialities, and to fall into the perfectionist trap.

Sometimes, of course, we just don’t feel all that joyful. One could argue that there is a lot in our world that is difficult to be joyful about. The daily news keeps up its relentless reminders of human frailty and tragedy, doom and gloom; there is much to be feared in our world, there is much about which we seemingly can do little. And then there are our individual struggles to cope with all the exigencies of our lives: work and health and love and loss.

Perhaps it has always been so. Perhaps I am simply showing my age by feeling more cynical about the human predicament that I did a few years ago. I want to be more optimistic, I really do. This is, after all, an optimistic season. The Maccabees, according the Hanukkah story, actually succeeded in their quest for freedom, if only briefly. And Christmas marks at least the possibility of divinity in our midst. The season is one of possibility and of unexpected, even outrageous, outcomes.

The Advent season, leading up to Christmas, can be thought of as a time of preparation for what is to come. It is a time of expectation, but it is also a time of patiently waiting. Waiting for what?

This question, I believe, lies at the heart of the season. What are we really waiting for? How might we take back the deeper meanings of this special time of year? And how might we learn to keep our expectations reasonable?

In thinking about these questions it occurred to me that one might treat the holiday season as an extended meditation. There is a great opportunity at this time of year to go deep. As any regular meditator knows, there will be distractions. But the secret is to hang in there, to keep trying, to stay focused, to keep returning to our practice. If we do so, eventually we will begin to make some progress.

One usually begins meditation with a period of preparation. As the late Harry Merserve has written in his book The Practical Meditator, "Meditation begins with the cleansing and emptying of the mind, rather than filling it with stimuli, even the stimuli of happy memories and hopes." In the beginning, then, there must be the opportunity for quietness.

How do we find time for quietness in this most hectic of holiday seasons? This, it seems to me, is the first challenge, and it is totally counterintuitive. In order to accomplish all the things that we hope to accomplish, we must actually let go and make time for doing nothing at all. We must let go of outcomes, and we must most definitely let go of the desire for perfection.

Many times over the years I have reiterated that what people really want at this time of year is your presence, not your presents. Though this is not an anti-consumerist argument per se, it is perhaps an argument to go slow and to be moderate. I think that these are two of the hardest things to do at this time of year. Go slow, and be moderate. Take the time to savor and to go deep, whether in your meditative practice or in your relationships. It is a paradox: in order to have more, you must do less. Or as it is wisely put in the Christian tradition, in order to find your life, you must lose your life.

A good way to think about this is to ask yourself what really matters. Several years ago, my study group made this question the topic of one of our gatherings. First, we asked ourselves, "What matters to you now?" I found my answer to be instructive. Here’s what I wrote:

If I am honest, I will probably have to say "family and friends" matter most to me now. I want my children to be happy and productive. I want to spend time with those whom I know really care about me. I feel sad that the world my children will inhabit is so much diminished in its high places and low places, in its mystery and its material. I want to live life and experience as much as I can with people I care about. I hope I have made a positive difference in a few people’s lives, but it really is about having time to savor and appreciate.

What matters more than it should are ideas of success. Money, probably. Having people like me. Trying to be good. Believing that I can save people--my own children, others. Being acceptable. My own self: my own ego. Seeing myself in print. The love of strangers. Details. Small stuff. Things. My vanity. My already deteriorating body. My legacy. My Harvard degree. My individual existence.

The final question that our study group tried to answer was, "What has mattered in your ministry?" The question might well be, "What has mattered in your life?" We are, after all, all ministers: we all have the potential to care about others and to care about the world in which we live, that is, to minister. Here’s what I wrote:

Grandiose as it sounds, building the beloved community here on earth. Making people see their own and others’ worth. Helping a few folks along what Amiel calls "the dark journey." Changing the world, if I can at all, one or two people at a time. Looking for . . . incandescence. Making the sacred a little more visible and visceral. Helping people cope with their mortality and appreciate their lives a bit more than otherwise. Being a decent and caring human being.

I share this with you because I think these are the kinds of questions that we need to be asking ourselves during this or any other time of the year. And these are the kinds of things that I believe really matter, even though my efforts at achieving them often fall woefully short. I commend this question of "what matters" to you as a good way of preparing yourself for the season.

What I think I am saying, then, is that it is important that we get beneath the surface of the season to what is most, or at least more, important. Christopher Moore, a Unitarian Universalist minister and musician who founded the Chicago Children’s Choir, once wrote,

If we fill our lives with things, and yet more things,
If we feel that we must fill every moment that we have
     with activity,
When will we have time to make the long, slow journey
     across the burning desert, as did the Wise Men?
Or sit and watch the stars, as did the shepherds?
Or brood over the coming of the child, as did Mary?

For each of us, there is a desert to travel,
A star to discover and follow,
And a being within ourselves to bring to life.

In the morning’s reading ["The Messiahs We Need"], Stephen Edington wrote that "we don’t have to try to be God--only to be ourselves, the best of ourselves that we can be." In other words, we don’t have to be perfect. All we have to do is our best. Sometimes, that will be difficult to do, and we will need to be able to forgive ourselves and others when that is the case. Sometimes, even our best will not be enough.

But sometimes, our best at any given moment will turn out to be more than adequate, much more, in fact, than we expected, perhaps more than we even deserved. Sometimes our best will be even better than perfection. Because who really loves a perfectionist? We are, after all, ultimately loved for who we are, not for who we might be. We are loved in spite of our imperfections, in spite of our shortcomings and our flaws. Indeed, sometimes, beyond reason and dessert, we are loved because of them.

This is the message that I would most like you to carry into your preparations for the season. Be yourselves. That is enough, and even more than enough to those who love you. Take the time to be quiet and simply to be. Don’t fill all your moments with things to do, because that is the surest way to miss the best opportunities of the season. Take time simply to be with those you love.

Then, when the season finally arrives, you will be ready for whatever gifts it may bestow. In actuality, though, it is always arriving. Let us be prepared for it, whenever it comes, in whatever season it comes. Amen, and God bless!

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock