Melancholy memories are part of the Christmas experience for many.
Every Advent Sunday, I turn to a lovely poem by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, “Advent Calendar”. “He will come like last leaf’s fall,” it begins, “One night when the November wind / has flayed the trees to the bone”. And later: “He will come, will come / will come like crying in the night / like blood, like breaking / as the earth writhes to toss him free.” I don’t normally get on with Williams’s poetry – I’m willing to believe the fault is mine given the ex-Primate’s many intellectual and artistic accomplishments – but what I find very affecting in “Advent Calendar” is its acknowledgement of the melancholic aspects of Christmas, especially the northern Christmas. He alludes to the downcast and abandoned feel that the natural world takes on at this time of year. As well as the mention of flayed trees, there is reference to the “alien” beauty of the “shrinking earth”. One of my favourite pieces of music, Ralph Vaughan Williams’s glorious Fantasia On Christmas Carols, expresses something of the same sentiment, especially in its opening minutes, which incorporate the subdued, evocative melody of the old English folk carol “The Truth Sent from Above”.
In the popular imagination, melancholy is not usually associated with the Feast of the Nativity, but I suspect that for a lot of peop-le it is part of the texture of the season. Not the dominant theme, perhaps, but certainly an undercurrent; an occasional discordant note in the overall melody. There is the seasonal factor. Christmas Day falls in the gloomiest part of the year. On some cloudy days in Dec-ember, it barely seems to get light at all. The vegetation is bare, the soil seems dormant, the seas and sky are iron grey. A traditional Advent – which ought to be a time of penitence, simplicity and preparation ahead of the feast – will of necessity have a solemn and thoughtful character.
Then of course there are the challenges presented by the traditional Christmas focus on celebration, togetherness and revelry for those people who find themselves alone or isolated in the world, and those who mourn. Several years ago, an old tutor of mine, a highly distinguished and much-loved academic, was killed in a car accident only two days before Christmas. Such a tragedy will forever cast a pall over Christmas for that man’s family, and there are thousands of others in the same pos-ition. My own family has suffered untimely deaths, and so any festive occasion has a little tinge of sadness for us. Doubtless, many Herald readers will be involved in their parish’s outreach to the homeless or the bedbound or the lonely, and do not need to be told about the difficulties faced by such individuals at a time of communal merrymaking. Even for those without a specific reason for sadness, the irresistible nostalgia of the season – the remembrance of Christmases past, especially the unforgettable magic of childhood Christmases – can add an element of wistfulness. Warm reflection on the past inevitably means dwelling on what Housman called the happy highways where we went, and cannot come again.
The Christmas story itself encourages ref-lection on the harder, darker areas of human life. The threat of Herod – the spectre of jealous worldly power – looms over the Holy Family, culminating in the Massacre of the Innocents. The flight into Egypt is a foretaste of the mortal dangers faced by the faithful all over the world throughout history, while the Magi’s gift of myrrh is traditionally regarded as foreshadowing the death of Christ. In the words of the carol, “its bitter perfume / Breathes a life of gathering gloom / Sorrowing, sighing / Bleeding, dying / Sealed in the stone-cold tomb”.
We ought not to let these melancholic undercurrents dominate unduly. Hope, naturally, is at the heart of the Christian message, and is the ultimate basis of all Christian thought and devotion. The faith looks forward to the red-emption and renewal of all things, at the end of time. We should be seeking to cultivate an attitude of joyful anticipation, and to be grateful for the gifts we have received from God and others. But at the same time, life is hard on this side of eternity. Our own sins and failures, and those of others, cause unhappiness and discontent, and the inevitable disappointments and shocks of human existence oft-en mean that earthly joys are somewhat tempered. It is true too that, as CS Lewis noted in Mere Christianity, such joys are by definition incomplete, pointing as they do to the infinite happiness of heaven, and so are bound to be accompanied by at least some feeling of dissatisfaction, of yearning for a higher and greater fulfilment. So it is that final fulfilment, the day when there will be no more tears and no more sadness or pain, on which we must fix our gaze at Christmas, remembering that it is made possible by the Child in the manger.
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