Standing By

I always find taking down the Christmas tree and putting away the decorations an emotional experience. This year, shortly after putting back in the loft, I was struck by a sense of loss. For me it’s a combination of nostalgia associated with my children growing up, alongside a sort of flatness that comes from standing by, rather than ‘entering in’ to all the high moments of the season. 

It’s such a common problem for people in Christian leadership, whose experience of Christmas is so often marked out by personal sacrifice, facilitation and ‘keeping watch’. This feeling reminded me of the kind of loss Joseph might have felt after facilitating all the different visitors to the birth of Jesus. He starts of on a bad footing, having failed to secure suitable accommodation for Mary, and then there are the litany of guests; the shepherds, and wise men. All the time, Joseph is a kind of bystander in his own story, both essential but also slightly displaced.

Just after Christmas, I was preaching from Luke chapter 2, about Jesus as a young man in the temple. I noted that Luke gives Joseph a bit of a rough time, almost editing him out of the script. Understandably, Luke is emphasizing Jesus as the miraculous Son of God, Joseph is necessary but not central. It leaves me wondering what emotions he experienced, what frustrations he felt and whether he felt any resentment. 

Many Christian leaders feel marginalized or depleted at this time of year: They facilitate, stand by, and often feel overwhelmed in the doing. Looking back on my own 20 years as priest and I recognise the huge joy I have felt seeing congregations alive in Christmas worship. But if I am honest, I can also own my post-Christmas blues. I used to think it was because I was ‘partied out’ but now I wonder if I felt low because I had actually ‘missed the party’. 

For years I think I felt conflicted that I didn’t feel more joy, or maybe it was satisfaction, around Christmas. On a human level, it just felt like a huge compromise between the expectations of my family and my church community, my own ‘hopes and fears for all the years’ were not really in the equation. And there is a real risk that these thoughts look a bit ‘bah humbug’. That’s not my intention. But again, even this concern probably highlights the difficulty we have in accepting and acknowledging how we can really feel in a celebration whose emotions are defined as ‘peace and joy’. 

In therapy I have spent years working on my capacity to accept my own emotions without judgement. It sounds like such a simple thing to do and yet my inner world had a zero-tolerance policy for anything that wasn’t shiny or bright. I had a cast iron will for manifesting the ‘reason for the season’ however I felt. This undoubtedly caused me pain where there was dissonance between my lived and ‘hoped for’ experience. 

As we enter these early weeks of the New Year, I would encourage you to make space to honestly reflect and accept those feelings which you might not have previously allowed. This might mean facing up to some jealousy, disappointment, frustration, or sorrow. Know that just because you name them, emotions won’t take over. Instead, they are more like notifications; they tend to leave your home screen once you have read them. Also remember that there is no condemnation for you. Leadership is hard, especially at Christmas. 

Blessings for the year ahead, 

Will