The holiday season is here, and it marks a wide spectrum of emotions. There is the pain of loss. The joy of gathering. The hope of renewal. The desire to rest. All of these are legitimate, and all create the tensions we experience this season. How do we gather without certain loved ones? Where does rest come amid the hustle and bustle? Does our desire for renewal speak prophetically and longingly at how the other 11 months of the year are lived?
The holidays are a nostalgic time for me (as I’m sure for you). I can close my eyes and be transported to certain spaces. My great-grandmother always had German chocolates out this time of year. My Dad made sleigh trails on the rooftop to convince me that Santa had visited. My first house as a child had a wood stove. The heat from that stove and the tree in the same room connect Christmas and warmth while the outside world is cold.
But Christmas also names loss. And rather than being a killjoy this holiday season, I wonder if encountering our loss might help us appreciate the beauty and simplicity of the season. We are a society afraid of loss. But gain and loss make us human. Addicted to progress, we avoid loss like a nosy neighbor in the supermarket. But loss often names great love. And great love gives our lives meaning.
I often think of my late grandmother during the holiday season. My Mom’s mother, “Nanny” to her grandchildren, passed away nine years ago this coming New Year’s Day. She was a gem! Nanny loved well.
Appalachian poverty (in which I was raised) makes life a perpetual struggle. Love is less an emotion or experience and more a commitment and safety net within the family. In other words, I always knew my family had my back and would be there for me. But the demonstrative side of love was less common. Except with Nanny. She was a true doter.
A quick definition of love is “an intense feeling of deep affection.” But to dote on someone is to “be extremely fond of.” Love is an inward commitment. Doting is its demonstration. When love is only expressed in worst-case scenarios as mere communal/familial commitment and obligation, then we tend to think of demonstrative love in scarce supply. I have learned to lovingly work for God. I struggle every day with the concept that God loves and dotes on me. My spirit is Appalachian, and our God does not abide by such restrictions.
God is love and the Incarnation is God’s way of doting. God holds overwhelming affection for us. The images of God holding wrath toward humanity are unbiblical and incongruent with the God who comes in the flesh and eventually dies on their behalf. The reason and meaning of the season is the same. God’s cosmic love dotes on humanity so they will not perish. Our impoverished spirits can never fully fathom the doting of God. It is a love that sees in us what we cannot see in ourselves.
Perhaps this is why Nanny was such a powerful figure in my childhood. Her love was unconditional, but it was not naive. It loved toward a purpose, toward a greater vision that I could not see for myself. Her doting was to remind her grandson that the world is hard enough, but her embrace was to paint a different picture.
Holidays are hard on all of us because they often mark the moments that the world seemed a little lighter and our families actually behaved. Advent and Christmas name deep stories that animate us. This holiday season, look into your loss. Find God in it. The mangers of our inner worlds are stark contrasts to the pageantry of the Christmas season. But remember, dear friends, the mangers are where the story begins. May you offer your loss to the Lord, and may the sweet Christ child enter in.