When Christmas Grows Dark

“It’s coming on Christmas They’re cutting down treesThey’re putting up reindeerAnd singing songs of joy and peaceI wish I had a river I could skate away on” —Joni Mitchell – ‘River’

Sometimes this Christmas season comes upon us when the last thing we are feeling is “MERRY”.

Once upon a time, I was fired two weeks before Christmas.

I had recently switched jobs from what I thought was the worst job ever as a country-route insurance salesman, to a job I loved as the manager/baker in a fully scratch bakery.

My wife and I had just moved into a larger apartment with our three young children and had just completed our Christmas decorating. Ready for the holidays, we were feeling like a new chapter of our life was unfolding.

Then suddenly, the store manager called me up to his office and fired me. One of my staff had  accused me of taking cake orders and doing them at home for personal profit.

I was stunned. As I walked out of his office to collect my personal items, his words kept ringing in my ears, as if I was stuck in a bad dream. I thought and thought how I was going to break the news to my wife. How will I tell my wife I was just fired because my boss thinks I’m a thief? I didn’t understand it myself. .

When I walked through the door at 11:00 am, she said “Hi, honey. Your home early! Anything wrong?”

I sat down in front of our freshly decorated Christmas tree, where she joined me. I did my best to explain what happened. She scoffed at the idea that I even had time to bring work home. She knew the shared  life we had caring for three young children.

After a brief cry, we knew we could not sit still. Our life had not stopped. We  got up to do the next right thing—she to return to caring for the children, and I to head out the door looking for work.

In just a few days, I found a job in a locally owned butcher shop and meat processor. This was a full-service meat processor–from livestock to wrapped sections of meat. I spent the rest of that Christmas and New-Years holiday watching cows and pigs butchered, skinning cows and de-hairing pigs, cleaning out their insides, hanging the carcass in a cooler, and cutting them up and wrapping them in sections for customers.

This is not exactly what I had in mind when I graduated from college with a degree in Biology and English. I was angry, I was perplexed, and I was afraid for my future and my family.

In the meantime, our city is in full Christmas swing. The streets are adorned with twinkling lights,  flowing garlands, stars and angels. River boats cruise the Black Warrior river every night decked in full Christmas splendor. And, we showed up at several Christmas parties, putting on our best Christmas face. The irony of being fired at Christmas made it all of this the more painful.

I knew that many of my friends were praying for justice for myself and my family. In the meantime, my wife and I made the decision to trust our God, and do our best to make this season special for our kids and for each other.

A week after New Year’s I received a call from the Vice-President of the company. He did not buy the explanation of why I was let go, and did his own investigation. After several weeks, the truth became known.  The store manager who fired me was demoted and transferred to another store, and the vice-president asked me to come back to my role with back-pay.

Now, when each Christmas arrives, with all its wonderful music and lights and decorations and events, I am reminded of that time in our life. After the initial shock wore off, after taking stock of all that we had, I remember it not as a dark time of fear and anger and sadness, but as a time where the grace of Christmas came through in spite of our circumstances. It was a time when family, friends, and God surrounded us with love and faith and hope in the future. We experienced one of the most profound and joyful Christmas’s that we ever had.

How illusory the “Hallmark” Christmas ideal that we are deluged with is for so many of us. For every one of us that looks forward to this season, there is another one of us somewhere who is suffering and broken— whether wracked with illness, loneliness, regrets, or estranged from family.

Then there are those who are thrust into the cycle of addiction, of poverty, of domestic violence, or of homelessness.They cry out at Christmas in the words of Joni Mitchell “I wish I had a river I could skate away on”.

For all of us going through a season of hurt, the bright sights and sounds and smells of the Christmas season can be cruel reminders of what once was but is no longer— making the darkness we are experiencing darker, the loneliness we feel even lonelier, the despair deeper, and the grief all the more painful.

If this is you, it can seem that at this time of year there are two parallel universes; the one taunts us for being in the other. While merry-makers are making merry, those for whom Christmas is but a painful reminder of unfulfilled or dashed dreams only want to get away from the sights and sounds that sting so bad.

Yet, the very essence of Christmas is of light bursting through to us in the darkest, deadest, coldest time of year. It burst upon us 2000 years ago, in a bleak and cold manger, in a country occupied and oppressed by cruel despots–and it has been doing so ever since.

No one needs to experience the reality of this message more than those who are hurting.

If you are one of the many who are hurting, scared, disappointed, or confused this season, then the love of the Christmas child is seeking you out specifically. This season is especially for you. How that love reaches you is all of our business. As Ram Doss has said “We are all just walking each other home”.

If you are not hurting, there is a good chance there is someone you know who is. Who is it you know that this Christmas season just heightens the hurt? Who needs your help as they are walking home in darkness? Who do you know who needs your light, your touch—your whisper of compassion and love?

The light of love that burst on the scene 2000 years ago in the darkness, coldest time of the year, has now been given to each of us to share with one another.

If you are hurting this Christmas, hold on, for this season is particularly for you.

In the midst of your hurt, may you be surprised by peace and joy .

Merry Christmas,

Bob