Gifts of the Season

A Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
North Shore Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Sunday, December 13, 2009

Before we begin, I want to invite you all to the Annual Holiday Open House that Eric and I hold at our house every year. It will be held on the Sunday after Christmas, December 27, from 1 to 5 pm, and there will be light refreshments and drinks and holiday music and cheer. I hope that any of you who wouldn’t mind crossing the lake will stop over.

And please remember that on the first Sunday of the New Year, January 3rd, First Church will host the first annual shared Greater New Orleans UU Jazz Funeral for the Old Year at 10:30 am. We’ll have a brass band and a real casket to bury our cares and concerns from 2009 to clear the way for the New Year, ending with a joyous secondline. Readers in the service will include North Shore’s Terry Van Brunt as well as Rev. Jim and Rev. Jane Dwinell and our Ministerial Intern Charlie Dieterich. We hope you’ll all be there.

Our Meditation and our Reading this morning remind us that all children and all people are special – not only that: all life is a miracle. Christmas time, the holiday season, is a good time to remember those important things. Christmas may just be another day on the calendar, but most of us are either unwilling or unable to see December 25th as just any another day. If you have small children in your household or in your extended family, it would be almost impossible to convince them that there was no reason to make a big deal of the holiday. But even without children, it would take either a very determined person or a very depressed person to ignore all the holiday goings-on around us. (And only the grinchiest of Grinches could not have been touched by the joy and excitement caused by the snow on the North Shore during the holiday season this month.)

There are always good excuses for NOT celebrating. Yes, it’s true: it costs too much money, it takes a lot of time, and it’s a lot of trouble. And yes, in almost every year, there comes some kind of trouble or major problem that seems to call the holiday season into question. After 9/11, after Katrina, after the recession – after any disaster or negative happening, many people question whether holding a holiday is appropriate.

Well, I’m a 5th-generation New Orleanian, so my answer is always Yes, it’s a good idea to celebrate the holiday (whatever the holiday is). For one thing, human beings, even we modern human beings, are seasonal creatures. We are affected in ways we don’t even understand by the pulls of time and tide, the changing angles of light, and the subtle shifts in the length of the day. As near as we can tell, human beings have always marked the change of seasons with special rituals and holidays. Maybe it’s not just “OK” to celebrate the season – maybe we need to do it.

Recent news reports about studies on the links between happiness, health, and social relationships point to another reason to celebrate the holidays, especially with loved ones. In brief, the study, by James H. Fowler and Nicholas A. Christakis, looked at a research cohort over 20 years, and came to the conclusion that being happy makes you healthier, and that happiness is catching. Of course, they did not phrase their finding in quite that way; as one academic reviewer put it,

A recent meta-analysis of longitudinal observational studies found that measures of happiness, cheerfulness, and related constructs were associated prospectively with reduced mortality, both in initially healthy people and in those with established illnesses.…

…Regardless of methodological caveats, the work by Fowler and Christakis is groundbreaking in positing the intriguing hypothesis that some psychosocial determinants of health could be transmitted through social connections.

Yikes! To put all that in language we’re more used to, it’s simple: hanging around with people who are happy makes you happier, and makes you healthier too, no matter your socioeconomic status, your environment, or your pre-existing medical conditions. Think of that – celebrating the holidays with people you love, people who are glad to be with you, people who enjoy the holiday season – can make you happier AND healthier.

This is not to say that in order to be happy and healthy during the holiday season you have to subject yourself to every holiday party that comes down the pike, endure endless loops of badly played Christmas carols, bake 20 dozen cookies, decorate your house inside and out with hand-made ornaments and decorations like some crazed Martha Stewart, or spend yourself into bankruptcy buying wildly expensive gifts. In order to truly enjoy the gifts of the holiday season, you must learn to be a good and even strict editor of your holiday activities.

The first thing you must do to have happy holidays is to only do those holiday events or activities that bring you joy and make you happy. Eliminate or reduce all those things that are stressful or upsetting to you. Buy cookies or holiday goodies instead of killing yourself standing on your feet all day in the kitchen, making everything from scratch – who cares? The store-bought goodies will be just as appreciated and as gratefully received. Have the store or the mall wrap the gifts. Never, ever, do holiday shopping on weekends. Decide what’s the minimum holiday décor to set the scene for your Christmas, and then call it a day. Draw a healthy boundary around yourself, as a gift from you to you, and you’ll be glad you did.

The second thing to ensure enjoyment of the holiday season is to maintain an “attitude of gratitude” – be thankful for what you have, for the beauty around you, for good things that happen to you and for the good people that cross your path, for this congregation and for the community of our three congregations. You don’t have to have a person or thing to thank, just wake up and go to bed grateful. Realize that things could always be worse and be grateful that they’re not. I promise, you’ll always find things to be grateful for.

Third, get outside yourself and reach out to those who are not as fortunate as you. And no matter your situation, there’s always folks less fortunate than you. As Margaret Collier Graham wrote in a little Christmas book published in 1906, “There is always somebody to be made more cheerful and there is nearly always a way of doing it.” Drop coins in the cauldron by the Salvation Army bell-ringer. Bring a scarf or a coat or a sweater for the Mitten Tree that the Sunday School children are collecting. Donate money or items to the organizations in St. Tammany that collect for needy families and individuals. Babysit for a single parent friend, or parent-sit for a friend with an elderly parent at home.

Rev. Jim and I have recently gotten involved with the important issue of wage theft in the greater New Orleans area; hundreds, even thousands of construction workers, day laborers, domestic workers, and restaurant workers are cheated out of their proper wages every pay period. This is a justice issue very close to home. Let us find ways as individuals as families, and as a congregation, to devote our money, our time, our skills to help others – and you’ll be amazed at how much better YOU feel.

Finally, savor the small joys of this time of year, those unexpected moments, which can give such unalloyed holiday pleasure. Many of these holiday delights are free or inexpensive. Go to the Ritz Hotel in the old Maison Blanche building in downtown New Orleans and check out the life-size gingerbread house. Go to the Roosevelt Hotel and admire the block-long lobby's decorations -- and be sure to look for my husband Eric as a giant Toy Soldier playing a herald trumpet for Santa at the Teddy Bear Tea. Savor the way old Mandeville is decorated for the season. Drive around your neighborhood and scope out other people’s outdoor decorations and be sure to fire your inner aesthetics critic – just enjoy the love, enthusiasm, and holiday spirit being exemplified. Visit Celebration in the Oaks in City Park or drive over to Lafreniere Park and gawk at Al Copeland’s decorations once again. When your favorite holiday song comes on the radio, turn it up and sing along. When somebody says, “Have a Christmas cookie,” say thanks and enjoy the taste of it. (If you’re on a diet, just have ONE.) Draw in deep breaths of the Fraser fir Christmas tree smell. Look at your gifts with appreciation before you open them, and open them all, even the flannel pajamas and the re-gifts, with a sense of appreciation and gratitude for the love being expressed, however clumsily or awkwardly.

We all need joy in our lives, and the holiday season offers us many opportunities. May we face the holidays knowing our limits, filled with gratitude and generosity, and a sense of appreciation. So might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

Reading Before Sermon at NSUU

Adapted by Rev. Ellen Cooper-Davis
from a meditation by Rev.Leslie Takahashi Morris
North Shore Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Sunday, December 13, 2009

Once again, we contemplate a story of the season: that in an ordinary place, without grandeur and gold, someone waits. The place is a stable, it is in a field, it is a shed, it is in a split-level house or a planned community, it is in a garage, it is in the church fellowship hall which houses those who find no room at the inn. And what do they await? A promise. A prophecy. A gold-en truth around which to pivot the axis of life. Or just a word. A gesture. A seed of hope cloaked in a small act of kindness. And why do they wait, in this mythical story? Because an omen foretold waiting. Because a commandment decreed it. Because they resist a jealous king’s degree. Because their old ways of life no longer fulfill them. Because they have lost the ability to find peace in their own lives. Because they want someone to care for them. Because they need to find themselves connected to something larger than themselves. Because, in some sense, much of life is spent searching, searching, searching.

And who waits in this story? Shepherds and kings, wise men and animals, innkeepers and expectant couples. Some have identities hidden, mysterious. Some have identities others would not claim. Some work fast food or retail, others peddle knowledge. Some pace the streets on restless feet and others get parking tickets on their own couches. And who are the travelers? They come with gifts. They are regal. They carry priceless knowledge. They use coins and bills. They remove their shoes in airports. They yearn. They seek. They want. They recognize places never seen before. They open themselves to potential.

And who are we to this story, this echoing tale of infinite proportions? Do we seek to stand outside: reporters and astronomers, scoffers and stand-up comedians? Or do we remember that none are merely guests on this earth, and step forward to offer our hospitality, our humor, our hubris, our hopes, and put our hands to the work of earthly hosts, tending and loving this place of dirt and miraculous new life? Do we open the door to let in the boy with his crust of bread and, at the same time, know ourselves in the boy? When cast, do we accept the role of gift-bearers? Do we carry the sweet smelling gifts of love and devotion, bear the most wonderful toys to celebrate the miracle of childhood, the talismans of wisdom and reason, the precious metals of inquiry and truth, the jewels of mystery and promise? In the story of the season, do we dig out the audacity to say we are as good as gold, that we carry a jeweled possibility of an intertwining hope that we are saved by the new day and our thoughts upon waking?

Do we step inside the story to ponder the mysteries as well, to try on the part of the heavenly hosts -- the ones who leaven, who lift, who raise our world and our lives up to a new level, a new height? Do we labor to connect the firmament of this earth to the ethereal promise that in the darkest, most still moments of our lives we meet our yearning to connect to that and those beyond our current grasp, to know a greater unity, to commit ourselves to its vision?

As we approach this night of wonder and awe, let us stand for a moment in this story and know ourselves to be part of a great unfolding tableau. A promise that we carry, and that carries us. We know ourselves as bearers of the hope that is larger than us. For we are hosts, not guests, in this, our world.

MEDITATION AT NSUU

“All Miracles” – A Christmas Meditation
by Chip Roush, minister, Traverse City, Michigan (2006)
North Shore Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Sunday, December 13, 2009

“Attention, shoppers! We bring you good tidings of great joy! A baby has just been born, in the bathroom at the front of the store. If you’d like to purchase a gift for this new family, our infant supplies are in aisles 17 and 18. There is a 10% discount on diapers, if you buy a case. Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart.”

At first, I didn’t believe the announcement. In fact, I thought it was crass, and disrespectful. I heard others around me dismissing it, too – “blatant manipulation,” one person said, while others just laughed it off.

But I couldn’t let it go. Something inside me told me it was real – and that this child was somehow special. Once I was checked out (I did *not* buy a case of diapers), I took a detour past the bathrooms where the birth had supposedly taken place. There was a small pile of diaper boxes, and some toys and clothes and formula, on a bench outside. The store’s security guard was standing watch over the whole process, and he said I could go on in – nobody was inside except the new family. He said he’d watch my cart.

I make it a point never to go into store bathrooms. The ugly walls, the
feeble attempt to cheer it up with a dying flower, the grime that remained no matter how often an employee signed their initials on the “clean up” sheet on the door – it’s all just too depressing. This bathroom was no better, but somehow, it didn’t feel as bad as I expected. The mother was lying on the floor, holding her sleeping baby, amid a nest of new fleece blankets in multicolors. A man (the father?) was offering her a drink from a cup with the store’s logo on it.

I excused myself for interrupting them, but they insisted it was okay. A few people had already come and gone, and each had been quite kind, they reported. Her name was Mary, the man’s name was Joe. They were still searching for a name for their new boy. They hadn’t expected him quite so soon.

They were on their way back to New Orleans, they said (it seemed they were eager to explain why they weren’t in a hospital). They’d lost their house in Katrina, and had lived for the past year with her cousin, Elizabeth, in Pennsylvania. Now FEMA finally had their check ready, to replace their house and belongings, but they had to pick it up in person, in New Orleans. They didn’t have enough money to pay for hotel rooms, so they’d been living in their van for the trip south. When Mary began her labor, Joe had gotten off at the very first exit, and she’d insisted on coming into the store for the delivery.

As they finished their story, three young men came bursting into the bathroom. They were quite excited, and kept exclaiming how special this baby was, and how honored they were to attend his birth. Mary finally got them to calm down, and they explained they’d received text messages on their cellphones, explaining that an uncommon birth was happening beneath the giant smiley face at this exit.

None of the three knew who had sent the text message, but they were all elated to have trusted their instincts and gone in search of the babe. One of them bragged that he was the first to arrive, because he’d been so resourceful, and asked a police officer about the smiley face.

At this, Joe became quite agitated. He demanded to know how much the man had said. Had he mentioned the baby? The man said no, he didn’t want to seem too weird; he’d told the policewoman that he was searching for his girlfriend, that she’d given him that landmark. Joe relaxed, and explained that he and Mary had been rousted from a roadside rest stop the night before. They had been trying to get a few hours of sleep, but a highway patrolman had forced them to leave. There was a 4-hour maximum for parking at the rest stop. When Joe had protested, and explained about the baby, it had just made things worse. The patrolman had accused them of being Mexicans, trying to deliver a baby in the United States so their “brat” (he’d used other terms, that Joe would not repeat) would get the benefits of citizenship. They could not prove their citizenship – all their legal papers had been lost in the flood – so the cop had threatened to arrest them, and call the INS. Mary talked him out of it, but they were still wary of the police.

The young men were strangely moved to tears by this story, and they vowed to go back out into the parking lot, and tell any police that did show up that it was a hoax. They encouraged Mary and Joe to get the baby into the van as soon as possible, and escape.

As they left, each man knelt down beside Mary, and handed her a gift, for the child. The first gave her a small collection of gold coins, each worth several hundred dollars, which they could easily trade. The second gave her his Blackberry, and explained that he would continue paying for its internet and telephone service for the next 18 years. The child would have the world at his fingertips. The last man offered a plastic folder, which he said contained a paid-up health insurance policy, with well-baby care and a prescription benefit. Mary began to cry at this gift, and Joe fell to his knees, to embrace the man.

A few moments later, I enlisted the help of the security guard, to carry the gifts out to their van. Then I returned to carry the baby, as Joe helped Mary make her way out. She got herself situated, in the makeshift bed in the back, and I handed the baby in to her. Her face was shining with gratitude and hope, as she thanked me for all I’d done. When I protested that I’d done very little, she replied, “So many people have helped us today. So many have said that our baby is special. We will raise him to know that ALL people are special; and we’ll dedicate our lives to helping others, just as we have been helped today. If you want to do something more, please go out and help others. Please pass this gift of love along.”

And so I do. And so I tell you, now. If you want to honor this miraculous birth, and this family’s miraculous message, do something good in their name. Treat the next person you meet as if she or he was a miracle, and the next, and the next. You are a miracle. We are all miracles. Let’s treat each other as if we recognize that truth.

So may we be.