We chose the weekend of the winter solstice for our monthly camp-out. Despite the weekend having the shortest day of the year (only 10 hours of daylight), we enjoyed relatively mild temperatures and calm conditions. In addition to enjoying an excellent Date Night steak, accompanied by a 2021 Treana Cabernet Savignon, and a crackling campfire under starlit skies, we also watched a couple of seasonal favorites: Patrick Stewart’s excellent portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge in 1999’s “A Christmas Carol” and the 1971 made-for-TV classic, “The Homecoming: A Christmas Story.”

This time of year–so filled with festivity and frivolity, crass commercialism and conspicuous consumption–often leaves us with a bit of melancholy. So many memories of Christmases past fill our hearts as classic carols fill our heads. We’ve been “unchurched” for several years now, which leaves a bit of a void in our spirits. We don’t consider ourselves atheists. We still believe in some Divine presence that orders the universe. But we’re also aware of how Christianity itself has become toxic. The Christian message, as we experienced it, has been transformational. It opened our eyes to the possibility of a world of wonder beyond our imagining. Scientists and believers alike know there’s a reality that cannot be perceived with our senses.

At its heart, the Christian story speaks to our deep human longing for transcendence. Throughout our formal biblical studies, we used the historical-critical method, which evaluates the source material, links causes and effects, weighs competing explanations, defers to physical evidence, and prefers multiple written sources. Such a method of biblical criticism is necessarily open to challenge and change. Our intellectual pursuit of mystery and metaphor led to our belief that Christianity isn’t monolithic. Rather, it is 2,000 years of stories, prayers, liturgies, music, and miracles, with traditions spanning its historic and contemporary expressions. The historian and biblical scholar Elaine Pagels says “No one can swallow the entire tradition: It’s undigestible. Instead, anyone who identifies as Christian chooses certain elements of it.”

So, here we are. Two formerly active Catholic priests spending the weekend before Christmas considering the reason for the season. We’re still so powerfully affected by the Christmas story, despite its cultural encrustations. The idea that the Maker of the universe would wrap our injured flesh around a babe in Bethlehem remains a powerful message of hope and faith. The message that a Divine child would breathe our air and walk our soil, speak words of peace into our violence, and bring healing to a weary, wounded world continues to resonate deep within our souls, even though we long ago abandoned the rituals and structures intended to promote and sustain it.

Is there more to life than meets the eye? We want to believe there is, but we haven’t any proof. Which is what faith is all about. We won’t know what’s on the other side until we arrive.

We’re reminded of “Gone From My Sight,” a poem attributed to Luther F. Beecher:

I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze,
And starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength,
And I stand and watch her until she hangs
Like a speck of white cloud,
Just where the sea and sky come down
To meet and mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says, “There! She’s gone!”
Gone where? Gone from my sight – that is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar
As she was when she left my side,
And just as able to bear her load of living freight
To the place of her destination.
Her diminished size is in me and not in her.
And just at that moment
When someone at my side says, “There! She’s gone!”
There are other eyes that are watching for her coming;
And other voices ready to take up the glad shout:
“There she comes!”