Celebrating solstice

John Beckett reflects on the meaning of the winter solstice.

Tonight is the longest night. As we wait in anticipation for the rebirth of the Sun at dawn, it’s helpful to contemplate where we have been and where we are going in the coming year. (Under the Ancient Oaks, December 21)

Rebecca Hecking suggests that separating the solstice from religious observations allows us all to celebrate the solstice together.

I think that Solstice, as a simple, natural lived event can help us transcend religious arguments. We all experience the deepening darkness, and the returning light, regardless of religious affiliation (or not!). Pausing to reconnect with the Earth in its moment of turning is an experience open to us all. It’s not a religious thing . . . it’s a living-on-Earth thing. (The Sustainable Soul, December 22)

The holiday spirit

Matt Kinsi gives voice to a rumble I’ve heard in the blogosphere—that many of us are not feeling the Christmas spirit.

I even forced myself into listening to the Christmas music radio station all day while driving around and shopping—nope. Maybe I’ll discover it on Christmas Eve when I hit up my congregation’s Christmas Eve services. . . . But for now, I’ll join the ambivalent chorus in feeling like I’m missing out on the Christmas spirit that I’ve felt in years past. (Spirituality & Sunflowers, December 16)

After mailing Christmas packages, Sarah MacLeod considers a series of encounters with a disgruntled postal employee.

I wonder what would change, at least for me, if I greeted all that vitriol and unhelpfulness with a smile and warm comment. Would she respond by softening? Maybe, but that’s not the main question (although that would be a fine outcome). What matters would be what happened inside me. I just might soften, and I’d likely leave far less shaken, irritated, and fatigued. I might even walk away with a smile, if for nothing else than the knowledge that I’d not allowed another person’s misery to become mine. Certainly, it’s worth a try. (Finding My Ground, December 20)

Deb Weiner is “carving out time for the really important stuff, the stuff that reminds me what this season is supposed to be about.”

In that spirit of hope and belief in the light that will once again return, I focus my attentions, this holiday season, on the everyday things that I can do—that we all can do—to bring the light to another person. May we all bestow such blessings on one another. (Morning Stars Rising, December 21)

The Rev. Naomi King offers eight nights of Hanukkah blessings for interfaith families and multi-faith communities.

In addition to the traditional blessings each night when lighting the menorah, we may also choose to add another blessing—the blessings we choose each day in loving interfaith families, the blessings we choose to create in healthy multicultural communities. These additional eight blessings are offered in that spirit, as we turn again in dedicating ourselves to the Holy this Hanukkah. (Digital City of Refuge, December 20)

The ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’

The Rev. James Ford’s family history leads him to neither minimize nor celebrate poverty.

There is no dignity in poverty. There is no grace. It does nothing to make people better. It is just a gaping hole in the soul. And anyone who says different is lying. (Monkey Mind, December 19)

Christine Leigh Slocum, a graduate student in sociology, explores the issue of class in Unitarian Universalism.

[Inaccessibility] likes to camouflage itself in a coat of subtle normality. A perception of normal is class informed, so it seems like it is “the way to do things” and that it could be exclusionary does not occur to people. If something is seen as normal, then it is not seen as a problem, and it may not feel privileged. (Seattleite from Syracuse, December 20)

Hitchens & Havel

Doug Muder remembers Christopher Hitchens.

Whether you loved Christopher Hitchens, hated him, or found him embarrassing, you’ve got give him this: . . . Hitchens’ in-your-face style has created some space in the mainstream for softer-spoken atheists and agnostics. . . . As long as he was the guy sitting furtherest out on the limb, you didn’t have to be. (The Weekly Sift, December 19)

The Rev. Dr. Terasa Cooley remembers Vaclav Havel.

He inspired not because he had the best political ideas, but because he taught people that it was possible to believe in themselves and live lives of integrity. While humanistic, his was not an individualistic manifesto. He did not hold to the idolatry of human understanding, but believed through our humanity we could find ultimate meaning in the world. (Learn Out Loud, December 19)

Around the blogosphere

UUA President Peter Morales reflects on the roots of racist hatred.

I have long felt that we religious liberals fail to appreciate humanity’s capacity for evil. We also fail to appreciate our own capacity to lash out. (Beyond Belief, December 16)

The availability of bright yellow clergy shirts with the Standing on the Side of Love logo created a flurry of activity on Facebook and several blogs this week, with some depth of feeling, pro and con. The Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein’s ecumenical blog for clergy has a representative sampling of comments. (Beauty Tips for Ministers, December 17)

The Rev. Derek Parker remembers the Rev. Wells and Mary Behee, lifelong Universalists. (Boy in the Bands, December 17)

Shannon McMaster offers a survey for examining UU congregational life. (This Is Worker, December 20)

The Rev. Dan Harper wishes the Occupy protesters would sing rather than chant. (Yet Another Unitarian Universalist, December 20)

Holiday break

Season’s greetings from UU World. Our offices will be closed from December 26 to January 3. Interdependent Web will return on January 6. See you next year!