Pansy and I have frequently discovered food service and gift shops in British churches, not only in massive cathedrals but in smaller local congregations as well. Thus, a visit to a house of worship may provide food for the body as well as for the spirit. In the English town of Bath, we ate in the cafe in the Manvers Baptist church. Their website shows a membership of 138.
Church gift shops sell postal cards and simple mementos, CDs, Bibles, prayer books, and even original art work. I remember a painting we saw at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, a church we have often visited in London.
St. Martin’s dates at least back to A. D. 1222 when it was, indeed, surrounded by fields. But nowadays, St. Martin’s is at Trafalgar Square in the heart of the city and no longer “in the fields.”
This artist was a Brit named Joylene Lowrance. We didn’t buy the painting, and in my googling, I haven’t found any information about her. But people in the painting are braving the rain, some with umbrellas aloft, others with no protection from the elements. I found the title particularly striking: “With Sunny Spells Later.” We like to think clear skies are the norm, with occasional interference from rainy spells. But the name for the painting suggests the opposite.
It occurred to me that “Sunny Spells Later” describes the normal emotional and spiritual climate in many lives, perhaps especially in the Christmas season.
Sickness, accidents, relations with difficult people, job loss or transfer, and death in the family are more common than we like to admit. When trying times bring dark clouds, perhaps we question God. This just isn’t the way things are supposed to be, especially not at Christmas.
Sandra Hayward Albertson’s book, Endings and Beginnings, tells of the struggle as she and her husband faced his inoperable cancer and then her adjustment after his death. Her words suggest hope for sunny spells later:
Health was to be the interlude with the natural course
of the disease the main acts of the drama. What one tries
to direct is a play with longer ‘intermissions’ in a tragedy
that has little to offer in comic relief.
Psalm 39 is one of the Psalms of Lament. The singer feels the Lord is sending difficulties upon him as he longs for “sunny spells”:
. . . Make me not the scorn of the fool! I am dumb, I do not open my mouth; for it is thou who hast done it. Remove thy stroke from me; I am spent by the blows of thy hand. When thou dost chasten man with rebukes for sin, thou dost consume like a moth what is dear to him; surely every man is a mere breath!
A modern-day echo of the psalm’s lament is from Tevye, the dairyman in Fiddler on the Roof. In one of his many conversations with the Lord, Tevye says, “I know we’re your Chosen People, but couldn’t you choose somebody else for a change?”
Christmas itself can bring emotional and spiritual stormy times that make us long for sunny spells later.
*We spend time and energy making lists and then buying presents, perhaps spending more money than we we can afford, for people who couldn’t care less for us or our gifts.
*We gather with family, wondering whether Uncle Joe and Cousin Cynthia can peaceably remain in the same room for an hour or two.
*We gain pounds as we eat and drink too much at dinners and parties, then face the New Year with futile resolutions to lose some of that excess.
*We shed tears of joy as dear ones arrive for a few days or only a few hours. Then we shed painful tears when the visit ends, wondering when or whether we will be together again.
*We look around at empty seats, once filled by loved ones we cannot see again until the day when there will be no more parting.
*We see other chairs, left empty by younger family members serving in wars that have little meaning and no apparent ending. Or those in long-term care. Or those who live hundreds of miles away and are unable to make the trip with only one day off work.
I love the various aspects of Christmas, but I offer this so we can be alert for the realities of the holidays. Many of us live with unrealistic hopes for the season.
When the rush and excitement are all over, I hope we can look back with gratitude for the sunny spells, short as they were.
Joseph and Mary see sunny spells after the Baby is born, after the shepherds return to their sheep. But then, the Wise Men inquire of Herod regarding the newborn King of the Jews. This leads the King to order the slaughter of all the little boy babies two years old or younger. This, in turn, causes Joseph to flee to Egypt with Mary and the Baby.
As we wait for sunny spells in our lives, we can pray for patience to wait for their arrival and for the faith to believe they will come.
Much of the book of Isaiah suggests “sunny spells” that can help us amid times of storm and darkness:
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. . . . For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and for evermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this (9:2-3; 6-7).
(Abridged from “With Sunny Spells Later” in my book, Once for a Shining Hour, 2011, pp. 183-190.)
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