Narcisse: Holidays bring a complex mix of emotions, memories and pressures
Joshua Henry Narcisse
The Rev. Joshua Henry Narcisse is director of spiritual care at Church Health and serves as parish associate at Idlewild Presbyterian Church. He is co-host of “The Mystic”, a monthly discussion forum hosted at Crosstown Concourse, and he lives in Downtown Memphis.
“Precious memories, how they linger, how they ever flood my soul; in the stillness of the midnight, precious, sacred scenes unfold.”
Aretha Franklin was the first vocalist I heard render those words into healing melodic form. It was November 2018. I was on the plane returning from Chicago, where I’d just asked the love of my life to marry me. Thankfully, she said yes.
We were watching “Amazing Grace” while splitting a pair of headphones on the plane’s infotainment system. The documentary chronicles Franklin’s recording of the aptly titled gospel album following a string of commercially successful soul hits.
The lyrics of the hymn “Precious Memories,” and Franklin’s masterful rendering of it, arrested my attention on an otherwise uneventful flight.
The holidays are here in earnest now. Many Mid-Southerners barely waited for the Halloween candy to be distributed and decorations packed away to pull out their Christmas trees.
The community is surely split as to what constitutes the “Christmas Season.”
At one extreme are those who think Christmas is a year-round experience, an unquenchable spirit that we ought to always tap into.
“In the midst of all the ways the holidays make demands on our time, energy, finances and faith, I hope we can take a moment to ensure that wherever someone finds themselves along life’s journey, they can experience the holidays in a way that honors the precious and painful memories that will accompany them in equal measure.”
At the other extreme are those, like me, who leave appropriate room for Halloween but take their cue from the liturgical calendar for the attendant days in the Christian calendar set aside to honor our dearly departed, followed by Thanksgiving and four weeks of Advent.
Only then do we come to the clearly defined 12 days of Christmas that begin on Christmas Day and extend until Epiphany on Jan. 6.
Regardless of which Christmas camp you fall into, or if you find yourself somewhere in the middle, the “holidays” have arrived, and as they do each year, they bring in tow a complex mix of emotions, memories and pressures.
Five years after getting off that plane, after moving to Memphis, surviving a pandemic, and scratching out the beginnings of a life together, I married the love of my life.
I even referenced it as part of my column last November. A year later, as I observe what would have been our first wedding anniversary, I prepare to head to her final resting place to view her grave marker, now that it’s been placed.
Precious memories.
The holidays bring with them a heightened emotional tension. There are meals to prepare and stories to pass down. Reunions will happen around dinner tables, budgets will be blown, and flights will be booked, missed, canceled and delayed.
And at all times, the memories of past holidays will gather with us for this year’s observations. We are, after all, the sum of our lived experiences. Nothing is left out. Holidays, while celebratory in nature, can also be incredibly difficult.
Sadly, the pace with which we settle into these final weeks of the year pose a challenge to our need to be thoughtful and aware of how differently each of us may experience these days.
The precious memories gather with us at the Thanksgiving table and on Christmas Eve night as candles illumine dark sanctuaries.
They gather with us as we open presents and listen to the gut-stretching laughter that fill our homes.
And they gather as the place our loved one once occupied remains empty and the sound of their voice never again joins the chorus of love that serves as a soundtrack to the season.
I’ve prayed with many a widow and widower, child and friend at “Longest Night” and “Blue Christmas” style services, where we hold space for those for whom the holidays, simply put, suck.
I’ve come to believe those are some of the most important services of the season. They create a soft space for those whom the holidays are bruising.
They ensure everyone has the space they need to have a merry Christmas and a happy new year in the way that is honest for them.
But those kinds of spaces are few and far between. We can do a better job of creating more of them.
This year I am a widower. And I am approaching these coming weeks with curiosity. I am interested to see what these hard and happy days will bring.
Without a sense of curiosity, the holidays would feel impossible to survive. But from a place of curiosity, I can release the assumptions I put on myself about how I should act or feel, and I stop myself from making assumptions about how others should experience these moments also.
In short, I am trying to create a soft space for myself and others to embrace the precious memories as those memories feast, travel, and remember with us at every celebration that dot the waning days of this year.
In the midst of all the ways the holidays make demands on our time, energy, finances and faith, I hope we can take a moment to ensure that wherever someone finds themselves along life’s journey, they can experience the holidays in a way that honors the precious and painful memories that will accompany them in equal measure.
For given the space to greet the pain without the pressure of being jolly or joyful, we honor not just the spirit of the holidays but the memories of all who filled our lives with precious moments and enduring love.
“As I travel on life’s pathway, know not what the years may hold; as I ponder, hope grows fonder, precious mem’ries flood my soul.”
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