A Dear John Letter for the Holidays

Here we are a few days before Thanksgiving, and the Christmas vortex has sucked me in. There's so much to do that I've been wondering if maybe we should just cancel Christmas this time around! I'd make a list of all the things that are going on, but there really isn't time for that.

Years ago I was in a college choir that had a week-long choir camp at the beginning of each year. It was a fun mountaintop experience, really one of the highpoints of the year. One year at the end of the week they asked us to write a letter to ourselves. ("They" because I can't remember exactly who asked us...) They said sometimes when the schedule gets crazy, you might start to wonder why you're in choir...so tell yourself. And then later that year they gave us our letters to read--to remind ourselves with our own words why it was worth keeping on.

I've never actually done it, but I wonder if I were to write myself a message after Christmas to help get me from here to there, what would I say?

Dear John,

Ha! "Dear John." It's like I'm breaking up with you, but since I am you, I guess that isn't really possible.

Look, I've been where you are. I know just how long your list is and how much pressure you feel to get the Christmas season just right for everyone. You've got kids and a spouse you want to feel really special, and this is basically your super bowl at church. And you need to catch up with your extended family. It's a lot, and right about now you're wondering about canceling Christmas entirely.

You don't want to do that.

Sometime in the next month or so, at a moment you won't be able to predict, hope will settle on you like a warm blanket. It's different every year. One year it came to you when you sat down with your family in the den after all the churchy things were over, watching them open their gifts and thinking maybe you found what real peace is. One year it came to you while you were dangling from pipes setting up lights in the sanctuary and you realized that while this was challenging and borderline unsafe, this one hour concert you were preparing for would start Christmas for someone--and maybe be Christmas for someone else. One year it came to you in the middle of a concert at that moment right after the sopranos and tenors soared when the kids sang that He will love the little children (I know you know that moment because you keep doing that same song every few years trying to recreate it. Maybe it will work this year, huh?).

I'm not talking about some vague warm and fuzzy feeling like looking at a Norman Rockwell painting. Not the nostalgia they're trying to bottle and sell at the Hallmark store for $6.99 per card. Mere sentimentality can't connect with your soul, no matter how good the Publix commercials are at tugging on your heartstrings.

And I'm not talking about vague faith that light and hope and peace and joy are coming to the earth for everyone (whatever that means). Yes, I know Jesus is the reason for the season and all that. Miracle birth. Laid in a manger. Angels and shepherds and kings (oops...the kings don't come until after Christmas, but I know they're part of the story you like to tell, so you do you, man). At some point don't you feel like all the Jesus talk is just sentimentality wearing angel wings? Silly question. I know you do.

No, what I'm talking about begins deep inside where you can't see it coming. It's like hope and peace are born inside of you and well up. You can't contain it. You can't control it. You can only revel in it like a child in the leaves only on the inside.

That's why you do the work you do--because every year you experience this profound peace, and you want to believe that you can help others experience it too. Maybe decorating the tree with the family will trigger that for them this year. Or maybe it will in ten years when they think back on these traditions y'all have built together. Maybe one of the gifts you give. Maybe one of the concerts you sing. Maybe one of the fruitcakes you send...wait...nobody like's fruitcake. And you've never made a fruitcake. Dude, don't send a fruitcake to anyone. Ever.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I know you're super stressed about everything right now, but I also know that every year you can remember you've made it to the other side of Christmas glad that Christmas happened and hopeful that the next year would bring us closer to living into that hope and peace.

Now. Stop wasting your time reading this letter and get your work done. That program isn't going to write itself! Oh, and if you think about it, maybe go easy on the Christmas sweets this year, ok big guy?

Love in Christ,

Future John