Halig Daeg

 

The Light and Darkness of Holidays          

 

            If we lost someone this year, the holidays are going to be traumatic. We won’t want to celebrate anything, and all the happiness being thrown around like confetti will only push us further into our dark rooms. What we want is for the holidays to be over, and we will try to ignore them as best as we can.

 

            Holidays used to be regarded as Holy Days (Old English – halig daeg), a time of centering and remembering. They offered people a chance to pause in their rushing about, look at their lives, figure out what they didn’t like about them, listen for spiritual guidance to make desired changes, and head off energized with a fresh wind in their sails. 

 

Many of us, though, have shifted the observances into a mash up of the make-believe and the want-to-believe, and another excuse to indulge in excesses. 

 

            Besides the Christian Christmas, other religions and cultures have observances in this time of year like the Jewish Hanukkah, the African American Kwanzaa, and the Winter Solstice. They speak of miracles, affirm core values, celebrate traditions and ancestors, and acknowledge nature’s changing beauty of its seasons. The theme of light is common in many of them, and the focus is often on recognizing the plight of refugees, the dispossessed and the oppressed, the hungry and poor, and those in despair who are trying to hold on to hope.

 

            Even if you haven’t lost anyone this year, pause in the rush of your daily life to listen to where you feel broken, sad, or defeated. Sit and listen to what isn’t working in your life.

 

            Holiday celebrations are often stressful. We hurry around buying sleighloads of presents, party too much, eat too much, and by the time the actual holiday arrives we are exhausted. If we don’t get along with everyone in our family, this is the time when arguments tend to break out, and we end up not speaking to each other for another year.

 

            Is this what we want from our holidays? For many of us, it is. We like the dreaming and the fantasies over the slog of reality. We think that if we build up a stockpile of good memories that this will last us through the emptiness we feel through the rest of the year. But it’s in the slogging where hope finds roots, where sorrow is confronted, and where compassion for others overrides our hesitations.

 

All of us want to feel JOY that won’t end. We LONG for something deeper than what we find in our daily lives. It’s the longing that people throughout the centuries have felt in these dark months of the year. Many of us will observe ancient rituals and traditions that affirm that HOPE still exists, even in the midst of so much unrest, that the miracle of the candles is real, and that if we work for what is true and just, we will help usher in a brighter future.

 

            For those who have lost someone, whether it’s a spouse, friend, parent, or child, the happy messages on TV and radio constantly remind us that someone we loved is not going to be here this year to celebrate with us. The holiday specials, festive songs, special foods, the pine scents and the bright decorations, even the crisp feel of the air can bring memories back that we don’t want to face.

 

            The best gift we can give to friends who are grieving is to not insist that they be happy. Allow them time to sit in quiet or read as they walk with their sorrow. They can’t set their grief aside just because it’s the holidays. You can gather with them for coffee, chat over Zoom, and bring a hot meal over so that they don’t feel abandoned. 

 

Putting lights in your windows can remind you, and those who pass by on the street, that the LIGHT of hope still shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

            

            If you are grieving, be kind to yourself. There are no expectations that you have to fulfill. There are no places, no events, where you should be. Do this holiday season what nurtures you. 

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“Halig Daeg” makes me think of Rose Tyler pronouncing “Darlig Ulv-Stranden” in the Doctor Who episode at the Bad Wolf Bay where she has to say goodbye to The Doctor she loves and is introduced to his human version. As the year winds down, we are also saying goodbye to the people we love who died, and we are saying hello to the new people we will meet.