From the Pulpit: Shining the Light When the Night Drags On

Not everyone is holly jolly this time of year, and the Rev. Spencer Brown has been there himself. How do we keeping going when the dark night seems to drag on forever?

Preaching at the Cathedral’s annual Blue Christmas service, Spencer recalled growing up in Oklahoma and attending a similar service with his mom and sister, at a point in their lives when everything felt especially bleak.

“As my mom and my sister and I sat in the church on that night so many years ago, we wanted our feelings to abandon us, our tears to cease and to feel like we did in the time before. We wanted God to come down and assure us that everything will be OK. But we can’t go back, nor can we stay where we are as much as we want to. We can never wish time away.

And when we are paralyzed by the long night with no daylight in sight, we can’t even prepare for what is to come. But the presence of God is with us through and through.

And so — we breathe and we feel we live into the brave space of a blue Christmas.

We let the tears fall and the pieces of our hearts spill over.

We spend this time dwelling in the present hope of community, the loving kindness of God, and the expectation of the light that we know will come even if we are unable to imagine it right now.

And we are able to finally exhale, knowing that our merciful and loving God holds us, knowing that we are beloved in all of our grief and our sorrow, in our joy and our thanksgiving with our messy realities and complicated long nights waiting for daylight to break.

In that church so many years ago, my mom, my sister and I sat huddled together because despite it all — the cacophony of emotions, the masks we wear, the immense feeling of loss and uncertainty, despite everything that we wanted to forget and time we wanted to wish away — we could be there, we could be present. Just as we are now, in the presence of hope and of love, and of peace, and the knowledge that each and every one of us is beloved just as we are — and just as we will be forever.”