The guy at the repair window checking my uncooperative computer was waiting for the diagnostic tests to be completed. We began to chat.
“Is it still single digits out there?” He asked. I said my car thermometer was showing 16 degrees. I suggested in a resigned way that it is winter, after all, in Indiana.
It was clear he was not a cold-weather person and had heard that before. He countered with, “No, it’s not winter until next week,” and implied with a half-smile that somehow this frigid weather was wrong, that nature was supposed to wait until Dec. 21 to begin its assault.
I nodded my head and continued to watch him work his magic (blessings be upon him) while I pondered his theory of the seasons.
I am still pondering. I know those numbers on the calendar are man-made constructs created for measuring time and that weather events are not strictly bound by a particular date.
Still, he had a point. Today, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2016, is considered the first day of the winter season by many people’s reckoning. It is the Winter Solstice, and today the northern hemisphere of the Earth is tilted as far from the sun as it will be in its yearly orbit. Today will be the shortest daylight of the year. Tonight will be the longest night.
This evening our church along with many other churches around the country and around the northern half of the globe will offer a special service called A Service of the Longest Night.
The purpose is to recognize that while the run up to Christmas can be filled with anticipation, joy and merriment, for many it is a time of pain, grief, hurt and sorrow. A Longest Night Service, sometimes called Blue Christmas, is an opportunity to stand in the darkness together with people who feel mostly sadness and loss during this festive time of the year.
It’s not clear when modern churches instituted the Longest Night Service as an Advent worship event, but I believe it is a relatively recent phenomenon. Curiously, the season of Advent — the four Sundays before Christmas — was historically an austere, reflective time of the year for Christians, the long darkness of the year reflecting a somber longing for the coming of the Kingdom of God.
That changed, I suppose, with the 20th century emphasis on commercialization and as the Rev. Chip Hardwick, director of theology, worship and education at the Louisville-based Presbyterian Church (USA) puts it, “The cultural message that everything is shiny and happy for Christmas.”
A survey by the National Women’s Resource Health Center reports that 45 percent of respondents dread the holiday season, while another survey states that two-thirds of women say they feel overwhelmed by Christmas.
For some, the unrealistic expectations and self-imposed pressures along with the financial difficulties of the season are reasons for holiday depression. For others it may be particular traumatic and life-altering events during the previous year that make this a blue Christmas.
On the many lists of coping strategies for holiday depression, one recommendation is to focus on what is important. For those who attend religious services, spending time at a place of worship is clearly a place to do that.
A “Doubting Thomas” is someone who is skeptical of something without direct evidence. Dec. 21 is the traditional feast day of St. Thomas the Apostle, the disciple who wanted to see for himself the wounds of the resurrected Jesus. The Rev. Dan Benedict points out that Thomas’s struggle to believe can be linked to the struggle to cope with the darkness of this holiday season. A Longest Night Service is one way to deal with that darkness until the light appears.
