By Worth Stuart
At Church of the Holy Spirit, we share communion every Sunday. We come together to hear the Holy Scriptures and a sermon in response. We pray for one another and for the world, and then we come to the altar rail to kneel and receive Christ’s Body and Blood. Once everyone has received communion and found their seat, I find myself taking a deep breath and praying in silence. Sometimes, though, my prayer is that deep breath. It is a few moments of silence from which flows thanksgiving, gratitude, joy, and peace.
More often than not, those things are connected. If you have one of them, the others aren’t far behind. Likewise, if one is missing one of them, the others are probably hard to to find.
The holiday season is upon us, and with it the pressures of deadlines, to-do lists, family obligations, the right gifts, travel, and the like. It always piles up around this time of year, and it’s all an all-hands-on-deck, full-court press until December 26. But it’s not actually over then, either. After all, we have to return to work or school shortly thereafter. It’s exhausting and a drain just thinking about it. And I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that it’s not only the holiday rush between Thanksgiving and Christmas when we feel deeply the pressures of everyday life.
More than ever, it seems impossible to escape the constant noise of social media, politics, and our over-full calendars. And where does it all leave us? Exhausted. Anxious. Overwhelmed. Isolated.
This holiday season is the perfect time to take all of that and put it away. Unplug from the noise and try to find some silence for yourself. Take a few extra minutes a day to just sit. Keep your phone in your pocket, close your laptop, and put away the things that give you access to the noise, or rather that give the noise access to you. Find the silence that we all have within ourselves. Find the moments of quiet. Take some deep breaths. Take those deep breaths and name the things for which you are thankful. Name the gratitude you hold for family and friends and the God-given gifts in your life. Friends, if we can find it in ourselves this holiday season to give thanks and have gratitude in our hearts, then joy and peace won’t be far behind.
It is not easy to shut out the noise that vies for our attention, that much is true. However, thanksgiving and gratitude are the antidote. In this season of rushing from place to place, holiday parties, home-cooked meals, gift wrapping, and all the rest of it, let us not forget to take moments for quiet. And in that quiet, may our hearts be filled with thanks, gratitude, joy, and God’s peace, which passes all understanding.
Rev. Worth Stuart is Rector of The Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit