By now, I am assuming, your Christmas tree is down and either stored somewhere in your residence or by the curb awaiting a bulk collection day from your city’s trash services. Decorations are down and yet, like ghosts of Christmas past, a few pine needles, a couple shiny flecks of glitter, and the one small candle you forgot to put into the Christmas decoration box, remain to both annoy you and remind you of a special time now passed. Family and guests once gathered are gone, and home seems a bit empty now.
January is like one, long, Monday, isn’t it? The month can be a bit of a downer, perhaps more so in pandemic times when rates rise. When I worked in a Lutheran nursing home, the Executive Director of Lutheran Welfare Service that operated the home, always had a big party in January for all the staff. He titled it, “The “After the Holidays Blues Party”. His thought was to not compete with all the parties and busyness of December, but to have something to do and look forward to in a month often devoid of celebration and joy.
How to handle the mundane? How to handle down times in life? These can be challenges for us all at times. Most of us do okay and bounce back, often with the help of being with others and/or having something meaningful to do. Some struggle with issues far deeper than moving past the holidays and often need someone or something very specific to help them move forward.
As I listen to Christians, particularly many pastors and church leaders, often I hear in one form or another we are called to be positive. Think positively and the world will be your oyster. Others seem to think we are called to spread fear. “If you die today, do you know where you would go, “is often the beginning of the kind of fear distributed. Which are you? Eternal optimist? Negative naysayer?
Whatever our makeup, I don’t think God calls the followers of Jesus to be positive or negative thinkers. Jesus seemed to be all over the place. “Your faith has made you well; Go tell that fox, Herod!…” Jesus seemed to be appropriate to the time and occasion. Jesus seemed to respond with proper emotion and attitude to each person and happening. Perhaps this is what God calls us to do. Perhaps this is how God created us to be.
Certainly, for Christians who follow the one of the cross, we can be honest with how we might be feeling. While we may not have to jump and shout for joy, our happiness at a given moment can be displayed. Likewise we need not scream and carry on because we are angry, but it is more than fair….often necessary….that we not let anger build, but instead acknowledged and admitted. A definition of depression that has stuck with me is that depression is “anger turned inward, usually triggered by a loss either real or perceived.”
So, mope around a bit in January. Acknowledge you miss the warmth of your decorated home during the holidays and those gathered. Find something worthwhile to do. Create your own version of “Blues Party” if only for yourself. Pretending January is just like December won’t help unless you actually are relieved once holidays pass. Be yourself. Be who you are. Be real. And don’t worry, Jesus will come again. The good news is we don’t have to wait eleven months for Jesus to come. Jesus walks through both blue times and times that are brightly lighted. From time-to-time Jesus will surprise us and come. While our decorations may be in storage, the joy of an incarnate God has not been shelved away. Now go clean up those needles and glitter and don’t let that forgotten candle bother you.