Many of you may have a co-worker or friend or family member similar to a person who worked with my wife, Sally, back in New Hampshire. This person was quite involved in her church, and her religious life was important to her. She and I had met, and she knew I was a Unitarian Universalist minister. Yet, she was still quite fond of Sally. As is true with many whose religious understanding is framed by a conservative kind of Christianity, she did not get what Unitarian Universalists are about. But you certainly could not fault her for that, for sometimes we're in disagreement about it ourselves. Still, this holiday season that points so dramatically toward Christmas seems to heighten some people's curiosity or perhaps it's their anxiety about Unitarian Universalists. "Now, let me get this straight," Sally's co-worker asked her, "You don't believe Jesus is the Son of God or God at all, and you don't worship him, so, why do you celebrate Christmas, again?"

Sally, good lifetime Unitarian Universalist that she is, was undaunted by this question and waded right in. "Well," she said, "most of us may not believe Jesus is the Son of God, but we believe Jesus was a great being and a prophet whose life and teachings are a source of wisdom and inspiration. And we believe the story of Jesus' birth is an important cultural myth that calls us to honor the birth of every child however humble their origins and to see the birth of each child as a sacred event. Likewise, we are reminded by this birth story that life prevails even in the darkest of times.

With that in mind, while we don't necessarily believe Christmas marks the birth of the Son of God, in the northern hemisphere we celebrate another important birth myth-- the rebirth of the sun. We celebrate the return of the little star that is earth's source of light and warmth, and is the very source of our life. In marking the solstice we are humbly reminded that our lives arise through the holy communion of earth and sun. However removed we may seem from the demands of earth's seasons and life's natural cycles by our technological innovations, our ability to live remains dependent upon the gifts of the Universe. We give thanks for those gifts. That," Sally said, "is why we celebrate in this season of Christmas." At least that's the gist of what she said, or would have said, she assured me, if she had had time for the several revisions that I had.

Although many of us may approach this season with a somewhat different understanding from those whose faith is more Christ centered, we encounter some of the same issues that this season, by its very nature, thrusts upon us. These issues can essentially be summarized in the question: How do we get from here to December 26th with our sanity intact? That's, of course, casting the question in its most basic form. For all the talk about this being the season of joy, generosity and goodwill the predominant feelings for many people are unhappiness, loneliness and anxiety. And the irony is that these unpleasant feelings may result from or may, at least, be heightened by the belief that in this particular season joy, generosity and goodwill are the feelings we should be experiencing, and if we're not, then there's something wrong with us.

There's another irony embedded in this season as well. In this time of darkness when it seems that a natural response would be for the pace of our lives to moderate. After all, apart from simply observing that much of the natural world around here is taking a break, we know reduced sunlight can have dramatic effects on our bodies, even inducing depression in those who suffer from seasonal affective disorder. It would seem appropriate and even wise for us to slow the pace of our lives, and yet we do just the opposite. We seem to look for ways to make our lives busier, to make life feel more frantic. "Mmm…only 23 more days until Christmas," we think. "I'd better do some shopping, wrap my presents, send out cards (at least, to the people who sent me cards last year), do more shopping, decorate my house, buy a tree, decorate a tree, more shopping, bake special foods, go to a party, have a party, recover from parties…more shopping."

Now don't get me wrong! I know that when done in a good frame of mind the things I mentioned can be entirely enjoyable --the wonderful ritual of baking special foods at this time of year, gathering with friends whose company you enjoy, or decorating your house as garishly as possible. I wholeheartedly support those celebratory aspects of this season that truly evoke joy and good cheer. Where things go awry is when we succumb to the tyranny of the season, allowing ourselves to be sucked into the Christmas cataclysm. Then, we lose control of the ways we wish to participate.

A bumper sticker I noticed some years ago addressed this concern, declaring that we should "Put Christ back into Christmas." Given my general aversion to bumper sticker theologies, I admit only reluctantly that it made me think. First, I passed through my self-righteous scorn, with my assumption the phrase came from a triumphalist conception of Christianity. "Hmph," I thought, "put Christ back into Christmas? Why both the timing and most of the rituals of Christmas were taken from pagan traditions. What do they mean put Christ back into Christmas?" Once my need for self-righteousness wore thin, I revisited the phrase in another frame of mind and spirit.

Whatever the bumper sticker's owner was trying to convey was not the issue, for if I allowed it, the phrase, "Put Christ back into Christmas" could helpfully inform my way of moving through this season. My conception of the Christ spirit is similar to that of the Buddha spirit of Buddhism or the Krishna spirit of Hinduism. It's the spirit of love and compassion that sustains all of existence. To understand Christmas then, in light of the Christ spirit, would serve to remind me of love's significance in this season and in all of life.

Earlier on I proposed that the issues of this season could be summarized in the question: How do we get from here to December 26th with our sanity intact? Now I want to imagine the question differently and ask: How can we enter into this time of the year in ways that will make our lives and the lives of those we touch richer and more filled with love? Perhaps we can head in that direction, if we give ourselves opportunities to pause as we move through this season. When we feel ourselves being pulled by the demands of the day, we step back. In his poem, "One Step Backward Taken, Robert Frost spoke to this understanding:

I felt my standpoint shaken
In the universal crisis.
But with one step backward taken
I saved myself from going.
A world torn loose went by me.

I remember hiking with a friend out in the Sierra Nevada mountains some years ago. We had set up camp and went out for what we intended to be a short walk-about. We found ourselves making a circle that would bring us back to camp, when we came over a ridge that looked like a shortcut. The only problem being, as we discovered after heading well down the ridge, our shortcut ended with a couple hundred foot drop off. But we persevered in trying to find another way down. Finally, we came upon another route, but to access it, we had to cross a hundred feet over a very steep snowfield. The snow was compacted on the edge, although you could dig your boot into it. Yet, we didn't know how hard the snow would be farther out. We had no crampons or ice axes, and if we slipped, we would have no way to brake ourselves from the several hundred foot slide down to rock. In describing the situation now it seems rather obvious that it would have been foolish to attempt a crossing. Sometimes, however, what seems obvious outside a situation is not obvious at all from within the situation.

We tested the snow along the side. We looked for sharp edged rocks to use for braking if we slipped. We did everything we could imagine to get ourselves across the snowfield without being foolishly unsafe. Finally, we just sat there for a moment, and in that pause, we realized we did not need to go on. There was no compelling reason for us to go that way. We could simply backtrack --returning to our camp the way we had come. Where a moment before I was feeling anxious and constrained, with that pause I realized it was self-induced. "With one step backward taken, I saved myself from going." Now, my experience wasn't that unusual in this regard: How often do we create situations for ourselves in which we imagine we must persevere no matter what?

We think we need to continue doing what we've been doing -- only better. We must not fail at the task at hand whether its finding the shortcut back to camp, completing a project at work, meeting our family's perceived needs or creating the perfect Christmas season. How does that happen? In spite of all the evidence to the contrary many of us still believe we should be able to attain perfection -the ongoing quest for our goddesshood or godhood. If we're less than perfect, then we've failed, proving once again we are mere mortals, and you know what happens to mortals. They die, symbolically and literally. The quest for perfection may either make us arrogant or spawn in our hearts a lack of self-worth, and its pursuit will forever frustrate us.

That wise fool, Mullah Nasrudin, from the Sufi tradition was asked by a friend one day whether he had ever considered marriage. Nasrudin replied that years ago, he wanted to marry and set out to find the perfect wife. First he traveled to Damascus where he found a perfectly gracious and beautiful woman, but she lacked a spiritual side. Then his travels took him to Isfahan where he met a woman who was deeply spiritual, yet comfortable in the world and beautiful as well, but they didn't communicate well together. "Finally in Cairo I found her" he said. "she was the ideal woman, spiritual, gracious, beautiful and at ease in the world….perfect in every way." "Well," asked the friend, "did you then marry her?' "No," answered Nasrudin, "unfortunately, she was looking for the perfect man." (Nasreddin stories are found in various sources. This version came from Jack Kornfield's book, A Path with Heart. p. 311.)

In A Path with Heart Jack Kornfield wrote, "The mature heart is not perfectionistic: it rests in the compassion of our being instead of in ideals of the mind. Mature spirituality is not based on seeking perfection, on achieving some imaginary sense of purity. It is based simply on the capacity to let go and to love, to open the heart to all that is." (p. 311) For many, life feels fragmented; it feels harsh, and rightly so, for it is. There is such misery and sorrow in our world, and that's a reality,
perhaps even for yourself. Yet, I also believe that's not the whole of reality.

In the northern hemisphere this time of year ushers in the season of darkness. It's a time of year that can especially convey life's difficulty. We may do well to heed the wisdom of Christianity when it speaks of using this Advent season as a time to prepare our hearts. We may not necessarily imagine we're preparing for the coming of the Christ, nonetheless I can imagine finding within this season an opening for greater compassion for ourselves and others. As does each season this season of darkness offers its particular gifts. The season of darkness beckons us toward a journey into our souls. If we simply allow ourselves to periodically pause, with one step backward taken, we may find ourselves in conversation with the stillness and engaged in dialogue with what is normally hidden in the world.

We have gone to a lot of trouble to arrange our human world in such a way that it never leaves us alone for even a moment. In this season of Advent perhaps we can try something different. Perhaps on occasion we might pause, and during that pause we may discern the love that allows us to forgive ourselves for our imperfections, even as we forgive others for theirs. As Jack Kornfield suggested, we may also "become more comfortable with paradox, more appreciative of life's ambiguities, its many levels and inherent conflicts," and we may develop "a capacity to embrace the whole with its beauty and outrageousness, in the graciousness of the heart…" (p. 309) Then, when you are asked by a co-worker or a friend why Unitarian Universalists celebrate Christmas, you can respond quite simply, so we may better learn to love.