It’s the most wonderful (and lonely) time of the year

I love Christmas season. In many ways, it is the most wonderful time of the year. I even find myself humming along with Andy Williams, not that I have plans for jingle bell ringing or mistltoeing this Christmas, but I do hope my “heart will be glowing/ When love ones are near.”

But, Christmas isn't like that for thousands, nor has it always been for me. Christmas can be one of the loneliest times of the year, especially for those whose loved ones aren't near or are even gone forever. The fact is, for many, Christmas is far from “the hap-happiest season of all.”

And you don’t have to be single and alone or separated from loved ones to feel the bleakness of Christmas. Being smothered by too much family can prompt heartache, too. As Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo) blurted out in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation: “I don't know what to say, except it's Christmas and we're all in misery.”

Psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals see a spike in suicides and attempted suicides during this season, and one study reports that 45% of respondents dreaded the holidays.

The reasons? Often, it’s because we over expect, over spend, and over analyze: We expect perfect moments, and are disappointed when we don’t have them, spend too much, then weep when the credit card bill arrives, and  all the while, we’re thinking too much about ourselves--- all that we aren't and all that we don’t have materially or relationally.

The season itself was never supposed to be the focus. It’s like buying an expensive gift for someone’s birthday, dressing up, thinking about what the party will mean, and then upon arriving, ignoring the birthday boy or girl.

It can cast a grand sadness on the partiers.

Especially if you are having trouble loving the ones you’re with or longing for those who are absent.

So, if “everyone telling you ‘Be of good cheer” elicits a “bah humbug” response from you, perhaps these suggestions may help.

Resist the temptation to beat yourself up for cringing when Christmas season rolls around. That will only exacerbate the situation. Most people experience loneliness from time to time. The events and pressures of the holidays only heighten the likelihood that you will encounter some form of melancholy during this time. 

Accept it.

Instead of fearing loneliness like the plague and fleeing it by rushing to replace it with superficial activities, receive aloneness as a gift. I’m certainly not suggesting you become reclusive or that you feed your gloominess by deliberately secluding yourself, but the remedy for feeling blue isn't going to be found in busyness, for when the activities cease, your sadness will return. Learn to appreciate the solitude, using it as an opportunity to reflect on where and who you are in relation to the eternal and others. Sometimes our deepest insights come when we have no one to talk with, when we are on our own and apart from others.

Walking the road less traveled doesn’t mean you walk alone. Turning your attention to others diverts your attention from yourself and your own lack. Look to see how you can help someone else.

Think of George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life) contemplating suicide. Suddenly, he dives into the water to save Clarence (Henry Travers), George’s guardian angel. That solitary act of valor set in motion a series of events that revealed to George who he was and what was really important to him. Remember what George said near the end of the movie when he returned to the same bridge? “Get me back to my wife and kids! Help me Clarence, please! Please! I wanna live again. I wanna live again. Please, God, let me live again.”

Even when it’s impossible to get back to your family or have it like it once was, you can still cry out with a desire to live again and embrace each present moment.

The baby born in the manger would know total aloneness, for he was not only born in what most considered a God forsaken corner of the earth called Bethlehem---but he would cry out 33 years later, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

He is the One who can feel what you’re feeling, and standing in you and by your side, give you your life and even more: He can make it last beyond the Christmas season.

And that can turn into not just the most wonderful time of year, but something far better: a most wonderful life.

Faith confronts the threat of pipeline eminent domain

On a frigid afternoon this past Tuesday, December 10, some 65 people representing different expressions of faith gathered on the Boone Farm in Nelson County, Kentucky, affirming their belief that God is not pleased with what hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is doing to his creation.

Why did they do this? Why now?  And, will their action shape the roles Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and the Kentucky Legislature play in determining whether Bluegrass Pipeline’s parent companies, Williams and Boardwalk, have the right to exercise eminent domain, permitting this powerful corporation to carry what many believe to be dangerous natural gas liquids through the property of landowners, even if they refuse to grant access through their property?

The event was in answer to the call from the Dominican Sisters of Peace (St. Catharine, Ky.), the Loretto Community (Loretto, Ky.), and the Sisters of Charity (Nazareth, Ky.), who originally articulated the Energy Vision Statement and invited people of faith from all traditions to join them.

The statement, signed by 117 organizations and 965 people from Christian and non-Christian faith communities, speaks against all plans for expanded extraction of fossil fuel or infrastructures such as pipelines that require the plundering of God's creation and the endangerment of human communities. The statement calls for immediate regional and national plans for the transition to renewable sources of energy which would better uphold the ideal of the common good, both now and for future generations.

It is no mistake they met on the Boone Farm in Nelson County, Ky., for the family has refused the company the right of way through their property.

Nor is it happenstance the meeting took place on December 10, for that is the anniversary of Thomas Merton’s death, the most famous monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, the oldest operating monastery in America, located near the Boone Farm. Ironically, according to current plans, it appears the route of the pipeline would include the Abbey’s property, land that Merton loved and often wrote about: “I love the woods…Know every tree, every animal, every bird. Sense of relatedness to my environment,” he wrote in a letter a few months before his untimely death. Several months ago, the monks refused to give permission for Bluegrass Pipeline LLC to survey their property.

And that brings us to the matter of eminent domain.

Exercising the power of eminent domain would allow the Bluegrass Pipeline LLC the right to seize land, even when landowners reject the company’s offer for easements through that property. Earlier this year, Governor Beshear refused to call for a special legislative session of the Kentucky General Assembly to address the hotly debated issue, and make no mistake, it is a contentious matter because it is unprecedented for a private corporation, such as the parent company of the Bluegrass Pipeline---a corporation not in public service to Kentuckians--- to be granted the right of exercising eminent domain.

One can argue the pros and cons of whether the pipeline would be beneficial for Kentuckians, but understand the gravity of eminent domain: It is an end run around the debate, rendering helpless those property owners who disagree with the Bluegrass Pipeline’s plans. One must ask, Does a private company have the right to impose its will on those Kentucky property owners who oppose the corporation’s agenda?

Governor Beshear has taken a bye in this debate. “We will have adequate time to take any necessary action in the regular session that begins in January 2014,” he said earlier this year. But in doing so, the governor has allowed the Bluegrass Pipeline LLC to go ahead with plans seeking survey permissions, and the company has admittedly surveyed lands without the approval of landowners.

Unlike some, I refuse to blame the governor’s laissez faire approach on the fact that his son, Andrew, works for a law firm representing the company that plans to build the controversial pipeline through Kentucky.

Whatever his reason for inaction, the governor has a responsibility and a duty to protect the rights of Kentucky’s citizens. He should follow the lead of State Senator Jimmy Higdon and State Representative David Floyd, who have pre-filed legislation to prevent the use of eminent domain for the proposed Bluegrass Pipeline. “If you’re a pipeline and you don’t have an oversight by the Public Service Commission, then you don’t qualify for eminent domain. You can’t have it both ways,” said Higdon.

As for those faithful who met in the cold, as well as others who have signed on to the agenda for an environmentally cleaner and safer Kentucky and Earth, they should stay in the fray---for they are a necessary voice, though they may appear to be crying in the wilderness—for the wilderness is the place where truth sayers often have to stand, the place where their voice can usually most clearly be heard.

No shame in tears

This particular emergency room is all too familiar to me: I know the room numbers and their location almost by memory now, having been called upon to pray here more times than I care to recall.

But every situation is a bit different; this one caught me by the throat.

I had known Colin since he was a pup, baptized him, watched him grow to young adulthood, and prayed over him when he left home on the way to fulfilling his dream of a military career.

Along the way, he filled in as our church’s assistant custodian--- a nice part time job for a high school kid. When I arrived at church early one Sunday morning and found a bat hanging outside my office door, I called (okay, maybe I screamed) for Colin. Being a good five inches taller than me, the job was his, or so I told him: “I can’t stand on your shoulders to get that bat.”  He grinned and removed the bat with such gallantry that I nicked named Colin, Bat Man.

So, that day, when I arrived at the emergency room, the news of Colin’s sudden death hit me like someone had just slugged me in the stomach, knocking the wind from me. Just the week before I had announced during Sunday’s service that Colin would be home from basic training the next Sunday, so “make sure to welcome him back,” I had said.

He died in a car wreck only a few miles from his house.

When I told his mom the sad news, she collapsed in my arms. A tiny measure of her pain was transfused from her heart to mine, and even that little drop of anguish was almost more than I could bear.

And so, taking her agony into mine, I cried too.

Sometime later, I can’t gauge how long, I attempted a prayer. The words stuck like gravel in my throat.

I tried again, hoping no one had noticed. “Keep your composure,” I said to myself, repeating words I had spoken so many years ago in a football huddle when our team was in a tight spot.

The words did come, but not before tears had splashed the pages of the Scripture from which I read.

They were words from Jesus. A priest had joined me to minister to this family--- some of whom were Baptist and some Catholic. As he graciously included me in the sacrament of Last Rites, I read from the passage where Jesus arrived too late on the death scene.  Jesus would raise Lazarus from the dead, but not before Lazarus’ grieving sisters, Martha and Mary, well-nigh blamed the whole thing on Jesus’ tardiness.

And then I read it, the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.”

“Jesus wept,” I slowly repeated aloud the words one more time, as much for my benefit as for those standing around me. I let the simple sentence sink in: Jesus really did weep.

Now, I’d read that passage dozens of times, and even had fun quoting it, playing my own version of Bible trivia.

“Do you know the shortest verse in the Bible?” I would ask.

And I would quickly answer: “Jesus wept,” ha-ha. “You didn't know? Gotcha on that one,” ha-ha.

But this was no ha-ha moment.  Neither had it been for Jesus.

The heartache that poured through his tears some two thousand years ago in a village called Bethany, flowed over me, soothing me at my point of pain in the ER at that moment on that day.

Before the joy of the miracle, Jesus wept out loud with the grieving family. And no one was foolish enough to tell him to get a hold of himself or to pray in a different way.

Walking to my car in the dismal rain, a distant hope drew me into its embrace, shedding a light that warmed and revived my soul, reminding me that we are often healed by the wounds of those who love us, cleansed by their tears, and comforted by their sorrow.

And there in no shame in that.

The joy is in the journey

I pressed on, hiking about 50 feet in front of Mary, who was straining to keep up. Dave, not in any particular hurry, lagged behind her another 15 yards or so.

 “I just know the clearing in the woods was right about here,” I shouted back to my two grown children.

Still unable to find the clearing, I picked up my pace even more, stretching the distance between the three of us.

I didn’t want to admit it, but I was beginning to doubt that I could find the place where I had exited the woods a few weeks ago, having chanced upon a small lake that surprised me as much as  my intrusion seemed to have startled it from its mid-morning nap. I had been on one of my “prayer hikes” in the knobs surrounding Gethsemani Abbey when I found the lake. It was Eden- like in its purity. I don’t know how long I sat before it, breathing it in as a heaven sent gift of incense, but when I left, it seemed to smile back, politely thanking me for venerating its sanctuary.

But now the lake was playing coy, aggravating me, hiding from me-- unwilling to show itself.

Earlier that day, Mary, home for Thanksgiving, mentioned that she and Dave wanted to go with me to Gethsemani for “just a couple of hours.”  Whenever any of my kids ask if they can accompany me to Gethsemani, I’m like, “Are you kidding me? Of course.  Let’s go. “But then I have to control my excitement for fear I’ll overwhelm them, keeping them there longer than they want, ruining Gethsemani for them.

Driving to the Abbey that day, I thought about how when I was just a kid, my older brother Mark would practically beg me to go quail hunting with him, for “just a couple of hours.” Half a day later I would beg him to “pleeease,” take me home.

 “I’ve got just one more place for us to try. You’ll love it,” he would say. Grumbling beneath my breath, I would follow. And on we would go, searching for the next covey of quail.

“I was afraid this would happen,” I would repeat to myself. The birds certainly didn’t fear me; Mark would often giggle at my errant shots, and to this day, he loves to tell of it.

“I didn’t want to kill those birds,” I would defend myself.

 “You didn’t have to worry about that; you never came close,” Mark would laugh.

 “Dad, I think we’ve gone far enough,” Mary says, in between gasps.  I stop and let her catch me. Next Dave saunters into the clearing, joining us in our huddle. 

“The lake has to be over there, just beyond those trees,” I say, trying to convince myself.

But to get to the trees, we would first have to cross a dip in the terrain, which is mainly muddy. Mary’s running shoes are no match for the likes of it.

“Just a couple of hours,” I hear Mary’s words from earlier in our day, and they are also my words to Mark, earlier in my life.

Lowering my head in defeat, I start the descent down the knob, guiding us back to the monastery.

Hours later, back home, I offer my apology: “Sorry I didn’t lead us to the lake.”

“Dad, the joy is in the journey,” Dave says, reminding me of words I taught them long ago. 

And then over a cup of hot coffee, we relive our hike back to the monastery, recounting the return when I wasn’t in a hurry to show them the ideal scene, when we took our time, stopping here and there, listening for what the woods wanted to say to us while the birds welcomed us as guests in their home.

The ideal place was there all along; I only needed to grasp it.

“Yeah, and besides,” Mary concludes, “now I have something to look forward to when I come back: We’ll find that lake.”

Maybe that’s what my older brother wanted for me: to enjoy something he loved, to join him on the journey, to want me to want to come back and find more.

Maybe I’ll join him on a hunt next time I’m back home.

I’ll ask him if I can just tag along and not take a gun.

I think I know what he will say: “What difference will it make? You never could shoot anything anyway.”