Christmas Day

Another Christmas Day has passed! Hard top believe it’s the end of December already. I had an interesting Christmas this year – I’m an honorary assistant at St. John’s Anglican in Ancaster, which means “volunteer priest”. It’s great – the rector (David) has graciously allowed me to be part of the ministry team at St. John’s while in between paid positions. The Bishop granted his permission, and officially this started in November. It’s VERY cool – great community, lovely people, etc. So – Christmas at St. John’s – 5 services. Yup, 5. The Thursday morning service is always at 10, and Olive led that one as normal (Olive’s another honorary; she’s a delight of a woman!!)
The first “Christmas Eve” service took place at 4:00, and I was officiating. This service is largely led by the youth of the parish – and WOW what a great time! It’s called “Come to the Manger”, and it takes place in a barn. This year was a horse barn of one of the parishioners, and we had folks sitting on bales of hay while the horses watched on. It was a really neat experience, albeit a hint cold (yes, we wore coats and hats for it  David and I used it as a gift to each other – I was REALLY excited about the service, so he let me do it – and I let him have the time to rest and just be prior to the full choral masses that we had.
We had 2 such services, 7:30 and 10:00. I got to read the gospel for the one service, and it was the prologue to the gospel of John (In the beginning was the Word, etc.). For those who don’t know, that’s one of my favourite passages of scripture. I learned Koine Greek so I could read it in its original. So reading it to a full church on Christmas Day was a warm fuzzy for me. After I had finished, I was thinking “NOW it’s Christmas.” David’s sermon was therefore a little spooky… he started by asking the congregation to think of the traditions that MAKE Christmas happen for us – there are the foods, the movies, the music, etc. – and everyone has their own thing that really means the holiday is here. His point was that the coming of the Christ child is different for each of us, and it’s our traditions and relations (as most of the traditions don’t take place without family there) that makes the Emmanuel moment so profound and unique. It was cool. And, to be honest, standing beside David as he sang the Eucharistic prayer was very cool – this guy is a formally trained vocalist whose talent is downright impressive. (Check out the Three Cantors). He’s also got as warped a sense of humour as I have, so it was just fun to joke around, nibble and chat between services with the choir, spend the entire evening in worship and among friends.
Christmas morning – ah, the blessed day when the clergy are normally so tired we can barely see straight! My puppies let me sleep in this year until the alarm (7:45! Bliss!); and after church I spent the day with some very good friends (pseudo-family), getting home late. All in all, it was a good day.
The weird thing for me this year was calling home. I mean, home home. Between services on the 24th, I called the Cathedral in Winnipeg, my spiritual home, and chatted very briefly with the folks there. That started the homesickness – I really wanted to be at St. John’s Ancaster, but I also really wanted to be at St. John’s Winnipeg. Christmas night, when I called the family in Winnipeg (11:00pm, the intention was for a fast call – 3 hours later…), I had the same homesick feeling. It’s an odd dichotomy – wanting to be in MB for the holiday (and yes, I even checked into the price of flying there for a few days last minute) but also wanting to be fully present here in Hamilton. A month from now I’ll be back home, so I wanted to do justice to my time here. It just felt weird – not right or wrong, but weird.
One of the really cool things about this Christmas was how very good it was – I have a history of not liking Christmas. That’s partially why I throw myself into worship at Christmas – it’s a place of peace and joy and grace –and being part of that is so essential to how I want Christmas to be. So to have had that positive experience extend beyond the boundaries of worship and the sanctuary of the church building was delightful. It was a GOOD day. Often in the simplest of things, we can be surprised by joy. What a gift.