Celebrating All Traditions
Preached 12/13/2020 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
Returning to the home of our soul can mean so many different things. This time of year, with the cold and darkness we yearn to return to our ancestral hearth, we turn to the memories and traditions of our youth.
It’s fascinating to me how many different groups of people around the world and throughout time have formed traditions, making meaning out of the longest nights of the year. Last week we talked about Chalica, our Unitarian Universalist celebration of light. It’s a newer tradition, just beginning to catch on, but if you celebrate Chalica in your home, then last week you lit a chalice every night in reverence and in memory of our seven principles.
Of course our new tradition joins many others in lighting candles. Sasha Sagan, daughter of Carl Sagan, has said, “it turns out Christmas’ roots long predate Jesus’ arrival in the manger.”
(read For Small Creatures Such as We p.230-234)
There is also Kwanzaa, a bespoke festival for people of African American ancestry. Like Chalica, Kwanzaa celebrates seven principles by lighting candles every night for seven nights. Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Kalinga, who looked to the tribal rituals of African groups such as the Zulu and the Ashanti in order to create a shared celebration to bring together all African Americans. Kwanzaa’s seven principles are Unity, Self-Determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity, and Faith. These principles were chosen for their unifying affect on the people who would be celebrating them. Each day of Kwanzaa, starting with December 26, one of these principles is discussed within the family that is celebrating and a candle is lit to honor the principle of the day.
Have you heard your tradition mentioned this morning? Perhaps your family celebrates Christmas or Yule or Kwanzaa. Or perhaps your family celebrates none of these, or maybe a combination.
This is a time when we can look around and recognize the glory of the diversity around us. We can thrill in seeing neighbors’ houses decorated differently than ours. People who celebrate differently than we do. There is so much to celebrate in this, as Mary Oliver called it, “one wild and precious life!”
It’s almost as though there is too much to celebrate, even when the air gets cold and the weather is threatening. Even when the days are short and the darkness shows up unreasonably early in the evening, even then, we have so much to celebrate! Community, warmth, that spark of light within. So much to celebrate. Love, human kindness. There is too much to celebrate and in this one wild and precious life, we do not have the time or the ability to celebrate all of it! So thank goodness as humans we wisely split up and celebrate in different ways. How gorgeous is this one human family.
Next week we will have our Holiday pageant, and I urge you not to miss it; it will be so much fun! And then the Thursday after that will be our Christmas Eve service at 5:30 pm in this same zoom room. I hope to see you then. And yes, I did just say that Christmas Eve is next week. Whew, this month is going fast!
I’d like to end this message with a prayer by UU minister Gwen Matthews about the diversity of celebrations that we are in the midst of:
As December opens up before us, we welcome the gift of reflection. We turn toward our holiday celebrations and search for common threads of meaning.
We begin with Yule, the winter solstice, and we are invited to explore duality, cycles, and seasons, and to witness the Holly King being overcome by the Oak King. Yule reminds us that we all partake in the miracle of renewal.
Hanukkah, the festival of lights, commemorates a time of miracles when the faith of the Jewish people sustained them to reclaim their holy temple and keep the light of the menorah burning for eight days.
Christmas, the celebration of Jesus' humble birth in a manger, offers us to revisit the miracle of birth and the desire to find saviors to heal the scars of humanity.
Here, in our church, you are just as much a holiday miracle as the turning of the earth, as persistence and dedication to a faith, as the creation of each new life. We see the love you give to others, the space you create to hold one another's joys and sorrows, and the generosity and spirit you entrust to this community.
You are the holiday miracle. This community is one of miracle-makers.
Amen.
Preached 12/13/2020 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
Returning to the home of our soul can mean so many different things. This time of year, with the cold and darkness we yearn to return to our ancestral hearth, we turn to the memories and traditions of our youth.
It’s fascinating to me how many different groups of people around the world and throughout time have formed traditions, making meaning out of the longest nights of the year. Last week we talked about Chalica, our Unitarian Universalist celebration of light. It’s a newer tradition, just beginning to catch on, but if you celebrate Chalica in your home, then last week you lit a chalice every night in reverence and in memory of our seven principles.
Of course our new tradition joins many others in lighting candles. Sasha Sagan, daughter of Carl Sagan, has said, “it turns out Christmas’ roots long predate Jesus’ arrival in the manger.”
(read For Small Creatures Such as We p.230-234)
There is also Kwanzaa, a bespoke festival for people of African American ancestry. Like Chalica, Kwanzaa celebrates seven principles by lighting candles every night for seven nights. Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Kalinga, who looked to the tribal rituals of African groups such as the Zulu and the Ashanti in order to create a shared celebration to bring together all African Americans. Kwanzaa’s seven principles are Unity, Self-Determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity, and Faith. These principles were chosen for their unifying affect on the people who would be celebrating them. Each day of Kwanzaa, starting with December 26, one of these principles is discussed within the family that is celebrating and a candle is lit to honor the principle of the day.
Have you heard your tradition mentioned this morning? Perhaps your family celebrates Christmas or Yule or Kwanzaa. Or perhaps your family celebrates none of these, or maybe a combination.
This is a time when we can look around and recognize the glory of the diversity around us. We can thrill in seeing neighbors’ houses decorated differently than ours. People who celebrate differently than we do. There is so much to celebrate in this, as Mary Oliver called it, “one wild and precious life!”
It’s almost as though there is too much to celebrate, even when the air gets cold and the weather is threatening. Even when the days are short and the darkness shows up unreasonably early in the evening, even then, we have so much to celebrate! Community, warmth, that spark of light within. So much to celebrate. Love, human kindness. There is too much to celebrate and in this one wild and precious life, we do not have the time or the ability to celebrate all of it! So thank goodness as humans we wisely split up and celebrate in different ways. How gorgeous is this one human family.
Next week we will have our Holiday pageant, and I urge you not to miss it; it will be so much fun! And then the Thursday after that will be our Christmas Eve service at 5:30 pm in this same zoom room. I hope to see you then. And yes, I did just say that Christmas Eve is next week. Whew, this month is going fast!
I’d like to end this message with a prayer by UU minister Gwen Matthews about the diversity of celebrations that we are in the midst of:
As December opens up before us, we welcome the gift of reflection. We turn toward our holiday celebrations and search for common threads of meaning.
We begin with Yule, the winter solstice, and we are invited to explore duality, cycles, and seasons, and to witness the Holly King being overcome by the Oak King. Yule reminds us that we all partake in the miracle of renewal.
Hanukkah, the festival of lights, commemorates a time of miracles when the faith of the Jewish people sustained them to reclaim their holy temple and keep the light of the menorah burning for eight days.
Christmas, the celebration of Jesus' humble birth in a manger, offers us to revisit the miracle of birth and the desire to find saviors to heal the scars of humanity.
Here, in our church, you are just as much a holiday miracle as the turning of the earth, as persistence and dedication to a faith, as the creation of each new life. We see the love you give to others, the space you create to hold one another's joys and sorrows, and the generosity and spirit you entrust to this community.
You are the holiday miracle. This community is one of miracle-makers.
Amen.