Nearly 40 years ago we served in London as corps officers in Chalk Farm corps and lived in a wonderful house in Hampstead with our three children. During that period our son, Lars became a paper boy delivering papers in the morning before school. Due to that and due to a creative impulse of mine, he and I developed a very simple ritual. We got up, while the rest of the house was asleep, shared a cup of tea and the dawn of the day, then he left on his bike with the papers and I sat down to make a rather big rug. When he returned he showed a vivid interest in how far I had reached while he was gone. He saw it grow, commented on the colours and pattern which were emerging; through our ritual he felt the rug was partly his. This ritual became very important for both of us. A Christmas in Helsinki Finland I was reminded of this as I heard him tell his daughter about the rug and about our ritual while she and her cousin was sitting on it dreaming it was a flying carpet. Now after having heard the story the rug seemed to contain even more magic for the girls.
Rituals carry a magic, because they separate the ordinary from the extraordinary. By that separation they give the depth to life that makes it possible for us to experience a fullness of life.
This is evident on the first pages of the Bible. It says: In the beginning God created …………. and he separated. These two verbs are crucial. In these words, and in the mighty deeds which followed the words and which God’s word itself initiated we have the clue to the mystery of life, of how to live life, how to enjoy and celebrate this precious gift given to us.
God created, the formless he gave form and the emptiness he filled with life. He separated light from darkness, night from day, water from dry land, heaven from earth. He created the sun to govern the day and the moon to govern the night. The sky was filled with stars to give light. The bigger light and the lesser light were given to separate day from night and to mark seasons, days and years. And they still do.
The meaning of life in celebrations
Up through our life we try to find the meaning of life. We try to answer the questions: Why are we here? Where do we come from? Where do we go? I remember vividly a sunny day sitting on a warm stone at the front door of our house waiting for my parents to come home. I was 5 years of age and was allowed to go home from the kindergarten on my own. In this time of solitude, I was trying to find the answer to the meaning of life. The conclusion I came to was that the meaning of life could be found in the Christmases and birthdays (with the gifts they represented) ……that we lived the days in between to be able to celebrate these. Well it didn’t satisfy me completely. I wasn’t sure that was enough reason … I had a feeling that there should be something more, so the question stayed on … (and is still there).
Well, this fragment of a meaning I found as a five-year-old wasn’t too bad. I sensed the profound importance of celebrations, of the rituals which separate the ordinary from the extraordinary. The celebrations are like fireworks lighting up the sky with all their beauty of colours. They are not to stay, they represent all the surplus and richness of life. They don’t represent security or long-term investment, they are not necessary for survival, but they express the intensity of the moment and the joy of living. Because the celebrations in a condensed form express our whole life they carry the meaning of life.
In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s book The Little Prince the conversation between the little prince and the fox focus on ritual and celebration. The fox says to the prince, that it would be better if he could come at the same time every day … if he for example came 4 o’clock in the afternoon, then the fox would be filled with the joy of expectation at 3 o’clock. The expectation would grow as the time drew nearer. If he just came at any time, the fox would never know ‘when to dress his heart for celebration’. A ritual needed to be there. The ritual is explained as what makes one day different from other days.
Through his creation God has provided examples and opportunities for rituals and celebrations for us to develop. He has shown the importance of separating one thing from another.
Because of this separation and because of set times we have the possibility to prepare ourselves for the celebration of festivals and seasons. We can live in expectation of the day breaking through the darkness, the wonderful light and brightness of the day, clearness of thought and energy for action. We can live in expectation of the night, of the quietness, the beauty of the stars, the depths of thoughts, the sharpening of the senses, creative dreams and a good rest.
46 years ago, Carl and I were sitting at his mother’s deathbed for a week, we took the night watch – the others in the family took the day. During these nights I noticed how the dawn of the day affected us all profoundly. My mother in law in her very weak condition where she little by little was loosening her grip of life seemed in a very real sense to experience a renewal of life at day break. In spite of the growing noise of the city, the morning business of this huge hospital, I could sense the celebration of the day in nature and in people.
Celebrations in light and darkness
Back to my carpet. As the pattern grew from the threads of wool fastened to the canvas, I became aware of the need of different colours to give depth and beauty to the rug. The canvas had a pattern painted which I followed, but I could have ignored it. In just one colour it would have been a usable rug and because of the quality of the pure wool, I used, it would have lasted until now as the one I made; but it would have been dull, not so interesting and beautiful, and certainly not been used as a magic carpet by my granddaughters. The lighter colours brighten the carpet up, but the darker ones with their depth are the most beautiful.
We tend to view celebrations as expressions of joy and of life’s richness, and they are. We are having a good time when we celebrate, and rightly so. But there are other kinds of celebrations than these. There are celebrations and rituals filled with pain and agony, but they are still the shining stars in our life-giving light and direction.
The basic aim of celebrations is to renew, consolidate and confirm relationships. They are to be considered as a divine gift to strengthen fellowship between us and between us and God. The joyful and brighter celebrations do that, but as often it is the celebrations of agony which reach the depths of fellowship.
This depth of fellowship I experienced when I as a fourteen-year-old lost my father. He came home from hospital to die, I knew his condition and fervent were my prayers that he would be released from the immense pain from the cancer. At the last moments of his life he and I were alone and I experienced the strength of the bonds which had always been between us. In the hours of the night following his death I was trying to make sense of the shattering experience of death cutting of the bonds and destroying what had been. In this turmoil the presence of God became tangible and as a divine gift I experienced a true celebration of life and of fellowship. A fellowship in the face of death, that transcends death because it is a fellowship with God provided by the fatherhood of God.
In Luke’s account of Gethsemane, he has one little sentence which illustrates this providence of God: An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. It could be called the angel of love, just being present. It didn’t change the grim challenge ahead, yet it changed everything by breaking the isolation of agony, and setting it into the context of God.
Being in the context of God I experienced 27 years later at another celebration of life in the face of death. My mother’s victorious crossing of the border from life to death, or was it from death to life. I have never seen such a joy and expectation in the face of a dying person. By this she became the strongest witness to us and our children who were there, that the fellowship of God lasts forever, and that the life he gives us to celebrate is indestructible.
The impossible becomes possible
The vital importance of celebrations is that we undergo a change through them, especially if we allow God to be active and at the centre of our celebration. In the celebrations we experience the highs and depths of life and through that joy and hope are given to us. We are lifted above the daily routine of life, we make a stand still in the flow of time, because celebrations are times of separation from the ordinary situation.
In Karen Blixen’s novel Babette’s feast (which won an Oscar in Gabriel Axel’s movie) we meet two sisters who live a pious and sparse life in the barren nature of Western Jylland (Denmark). Into their home they welcome a French refugee, Babette who stays with them as a servant and cook. She inherits a large sum of money. For the money she wants to make a feast for the sisters and their little faith community …. and she starts preparing. She used to be a famous cook, an artist in her field. The feast takes place and the simple people of the faith community don’t really understand what goes on, but a visitor, a noble man recognises the grandness of the meal. For all present this meal is a celebration of the impossible being possible, of reconciliation, of heaven touching earth. In this way the movie (novel) visualises what celebration is all about.
Celebrations are these moments where we in a sense are both outside time and most intensely in time.
In the art of playing we can experience such celebrations. We experience that the impossible becomes possible. If we let go the ability to play we lose many opportunities for celebrations, but we can learn from watching the children if we have outgrown the child within us. We cannot play and make an objective distance to play, we are either in it or out of it. Play lives for its own sake, it expresses life in fullness and we play because the play itself has meaning, not to learn or live up to something. What makes playing so fruitful and refreshing is that we live intensely in the present moment and are rejoicing in just being. In play we don’t hide ourselves, the protection falls and the full register of feelings opens up. Joy, anger, sorrow, laughter, tears, ambitions etc. In the moments of playing children develop social and emotional skills – these skills we get a refresher course in when we genuinely give ourselves to play.
Dreaming is part of playing, part of celebrations. I can always recall how I as a child was engaged in a make be ‘6 days tour’. We were riding our bikes round a huge stable of fire wood dreaming that we were the heroes of the ‘6-day tour’ which we saw on the front page of the daily paper from Forum in Copenhagen. As I never have attended a ‘real one’ in Forum I still have the illusion that a ‘6-day tour’ has the wonderful smell of newly chopped wood.
Our life becomes poor if we forget playing and dreaming as a celebration of life.
Dreams belong to our faith and to our religious life. They are basic to it and are in this connection called visions. In our celebrations we are open for these visions. They confirm for us that higher than reality stands the possibility.
Celebration of colour and sound
In Phil Needham’s inspiring book: He who laughed first. Delighting in a Holy God, my favourite painter J.M.W. Turner is mentioned. The greatest celebration of colours I have ever experienced was my first meeting with his paintings. As cadets in London Carl and I were courting and as there were not many quiet places around, we often chose National Art Gallery as a place for a quiet time together. We were not especially interested in art at that time, but that changed. A Friday when we came to the room where a number of Turner’s paintings were exhibited I was struck by his magnificent celebration of light. It was as if the whole room was filled with the light and the beautiful colours and I was overwhelmed by it. Since then I have made many pilgrimages to The Tate Gallery where the largest collection is and visits to the National Art Gallery to remember that celebration of colour and light. During many years we had four prints of his sunsets hanging in our sitting room wherever we lived to remember the insight that celebration brought.
With our amazing senses we are gifted for receiving so much in life, things that become more that just experiences, which are lifted up to become true celebrations. Music is another source of becoming a ritual which makes the time of listening special. A winter in Moscow at a time of exhaustion Carl and I went to a concert in Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. There were music of Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich and it was enjoyable and uplifting. But the real celebration came when Shostakovich 5th Symphony was played and the orchestra came to the Largo. In these moments time and space were forgotten and only the celebration of sound existed.
Celebrations as hallmarks of a common history
On the pages of the Bible we see how important celebrations were for the people of God, both the old and new people of God. It gave them an identity and a sense of belonging to each other.
Up through Jewish history it has been the celebration of the Jewish festivals and in particular the celebration of the Sabbath which has been the bearer of Jewish identity. They have been the corner stones of a Jewish social memory which neither persecution nor death could destroy.
In Church history clashes over calendars became serious, because the main function of the calendar was to highlight the religious festivals – and they were at the centre of religious identity. They revealed which Christian tradition you belonged to. They are still important today. For the Orthodox Christians in Russia the Julian calendar is sacred, because it helps to make a distance to secular society, which follows the Gregorian calendar introduced by Lenin, and gives identity to Orthodoxy.
For the early Christians the resurrection day – the Sunday became the great celebration and this celebration is still with us today. To live in Russia was a constant reminder of that, as the name for Sunday in Russian is resurrection.
We belong to the Church universal, the communion of the past, present and future – the great Christian festivals and celebrations give us identity as such and a sense of belonging. They become vital parts of our social memory.
When we are using the word celebrate in Christian terms we often think of the celebration of the Lord’s supper – the symbol of the vital feeding upon Christ.
As Salvationists we don’t combine the word celebration narrowly with the Eucharist, we have our specific celebrations. In worship we celebrate the gifts of salvation and holiness and by doing so our identity is built upon these gifts. In this we are feeding upon Christ, the only, true and original sacrament, and by this celebrating his life, death and resurrection – and his continuing presence by the Holy Spirit. By this celebration we experience a fullness of life.
When we as family and friends celebrate important days and events we are building our identity and sense of belonging. By that we share each other’s life and history – we are building up a social memory.
If we discontinue our celebrations as a community of faith, as Salvationists or as family and friends, and if we forget the importance of the separation of time, we impoverish ourselves and what is part of our social memory will get lost in a social amnesia. This will be a threat to our identity and our sense of community.
Celebrations to experience fullness of life
We live in societies which are thirsting for true celebrations because they have forgotten the vital point of separation. We are celebrating non-stop all sorts of superficial celebrations – the secret of the power of preparation time has been lost. Instead of preparation for Christmas we are celebrating Christmas for weeks on end, so when it is here we have lost interest or are fed up with it all. For Easter we can buy Easter eggs for two months at least etc. In Denmark we still have celebrations to mark the start of lent with dress up parties, plays and special cakes. These cakes will be in the shops a few weeks after Christmas and stay there weeks into the lent period. People don’t observe lent anyhow so the reason for these celebrations have gone – (well, the celebration is fun anyhow). Apart from these celebrations from the Christian calendar all sort of celebrations has been invented to support commerce and to give reason to indulge. By celebrating all the time celebrations have lost their meaning.
Nahum points to the core of true celebrations in 1.15: “Look, here on the mountains the feet of one who brings good news who proclaims peace! Celebrate your festivals…… and fulfil your vows.”
We are encouraged to celebrate and to fulfil our vows. We are called to live holy lives, to reflect the presence of God, his power and grace in our living. This certainly calls for celebration, but no fullness of life will be experienced if we forget to fulfil our part of our covenant with God. Neither will the fullness come if we only concentrate on the vows and forget the celebration.
Paul expresses the same truth in 1Cor 5.8: “Therefore let us celebrate the festival…….with..the bread of sincerity and truth.
Sincerity and truth transform our celebrations away from the superficial to the genuine experience of communion which changes us and make these occasions special.
A carpet of celebration
Let me conclude with my carpet. It is in a very true sense a prayer rug. The pattern is actually an old Arabic pattern for a prayer rug, but more important when I made it 40 years ago the threads were fastened to the canvas with prayer – prayers for the daily life at that time, for Lars on his bike, for his life and future, for our daughters, Gry and Pil and their future, for the corps etc. etc. There are threads of anger, hurts, pain and sorrow, of joy, fulfilment, healing and peace of mind and by that they form a beautiful pattern of a fullness of life.
The different colours and shade and the separation between them are a daily reminder of the different celebrations in life and the importance of these.
When our granddaughters, Cecilie and Jasmin imagined they were sitting on a flying carpet – they were. Prayers do reach heaven and celebrations encompass the highs and depths of life. They make the impossible possible for us and say to us: Higher than reality stands the possibility.
Salvationist viewpoints 