Mission Critical Joy

clearing the December decks for what may help us most right now

I had a conversation with a colleague yesterday who reported that they had cleaned their December calendar of anything that wasn’t mission critical, and as a result, they had a lot more time for conversations, meals with colleagues and congregants, and time to think about the holidays in a way that wasn’t just ‘what will all the holiday worship services look like’.

It sounded… well, amazing. Admirable, even, when an hour or so later I was reminded of this thought thanks to another colleague: Ministry is figuring out how much you can let go. And it reminded me of how many conversations I’m having with people who are realizing that they need joy and hope right now, not more ‘this is how screwed we are and will be.’

It harkens back to what I’ve long said, that we don’t have to report or repeat the news: people know what’s wrong. What they need from our pulpits and our study groups is our faith’s perspective on the news – what does it mean for us and how do we deal with/act upon it?

If you’ve been following my prescription to do your adulting (getting your personal and collective houses in order), and if you’ve been letting go of the grudges and frustrations and fake fights, then let me say unto you: you can clear your calendar of things that aren’t mission critical, and fill it with joy.

(Speaking of, thanks for your grace about my not posting yesterday – I have been overbooked, and the last few days were no exception. I am, in fact, taking my own advice and clearing my calendar of things that aren’t mission critical.)

Now if you haven’t been following my prescription, then do that now! It’s December, folks. We’re in a time of bearing witness to the longest nights… of praying the oil lasts… of waiting for the child to be born… of gathering friends and family and remembering what actually matters.

We need joy. We need the laughter when getting caught out on “Little Drummer Boy.” We need the delight of driving through brightly lit neighborhoods. We need the smell of cookies in the air and mulled cider in our mugs. We need the songs and the carols and the off key singing (and we definitely need a “Puppy for Hanukkah”). We need to wrestle with the tree and scrape the wax off the menorah and find the yule log.

I say all this to say THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO MAKE MORE WORK. It’s not the time to call for meetings that can wait. It’s not the time to make an issue of something that’s not an issue. It’s definitely not the time to bitch about things that don’t matter or reignite fake fights.

Please. We are all in need of hope and joy right now. How can we prioritize that, so that our work does not seem in vain? Remember that joy is resistance, and that joy stamps dignity upon our personhood.

Lean into that. Celebrate that. Leave the fights behind.

Programming note: There will be one more Hold My Chalice next week, then I’m taking Christmas Day and New Year’s Day off, and will be back on January 8^th. (There’s a possibility I’ll get bored and send something out during the holiday break, but there’s also a possibility I won’t.)