Weekly Message from T. J.

All Through the Night

On Sunday, at the urging of friends, I was delighted to attend the annual holiday concert presented by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Honolulu. It was extraordinary—not necessarily for the musicianship (though lovely), but more for the depth of the concert’s heart. The songs ranged from campy or downright crass to truly joyful and touching. I was not surprised in the least to see a few of the beloved members of our congregation there, lending their support. And I was delighted to watch my friend in the chorus do so well on his solo number, “Blue Christmas,” even if I didn’t get a candy cane when he was passing them out to the audience.

And as raucous a rendition as my friend offered of this favorite tune, there is no denying the truth from which the idea of being blue at this time of year springs. One of my favorite movies is “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” And in that movie Charlie is a little blue. Though Snoopy tries to cheer him up, Lucy tries to fix his mind, and others get him involved in a pageant as the director, he does not escape easily the pressures and the loaded messages of commercialism and marketing so pervasive even in Charlie Brown’s youth (if, indeed, he was ever young).

Pastorally, there are times when I wonder whether this time of year, on balance, might cause more trouble than it solves. There seems hardly a way to win at this time of year. So many expectations build up around us. Holidays and remembrances that honor so many different heritages, so many different times, so many different truths, seem to tug and pull our attention, with the chance that we might be missing something, or worse, someone, in our remembering and our traditions.

And sometimes harder than missing someone who is in our midst this time of year, is missing someone who’s gone from us—whether having departed their earthly existence or simply not returning our calls. And it is in this spirit, in the missing of those less often in our lives now, that I will gather with a number of colleagues in faith from our community to host a “Longest Night” or Blue Christmas service in Atherton Chapel at Central Union Church at 6:30 pm this Saturday. Through ritual, song, meditation, and community, many find that touching their pain a bit in this way is safe, nurturing, and healing.

The blue in each of us is as natural as the azure bending across the arc of the skies and as powerful as the sapphire currents that shape our shores. And whether this blue comes forth for us as it may in show-stopping, candy cane blitzing chorus numbers, wry 1960s cartoons, or in a name we write on an ornament to hang on a tree to remember, to miss, to honor someone, this blue unites and touches us all. And so we will sing our songs and bid Joy to come. But not before we remember what is true, what is blue, and what is shared between the two.

And may it ever so.
Rev. T. J.
minister@unitariansofhi.org