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Evergreen

Some things are evergreen. Like not knowing what day it is in this long stretch of pajama days between Christmas and New Year’s.

Like the way peppermint and chocolate mixed together = a particularly seasonal kind of flavor.

Like the feeling of sitting quietly reading with someone at both ends of the sofa.

Like the fact that we’re all aging, always. Until we’re not. (Do you feel it this year? The aging? I really do.)

Like our Advent wreath. Every Sunday evening in December (usually squeezed between Premier League matches), we read a simple interfaith Unitarian Universalist liturgy to light our candles. We talk about hope, peace, joy, and love, and the moments and people and places that show us what those things look like in real life.

And I love it more, quietly, every year.

Evergreen.

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Sacred spaces

The other night we walked over to this twinkly old church for a holiday concert. It was spirited and brassy and singable.

Very few people go to church regularly in Switzerland. The political scene here is completely devoid of the bizarro religious nationalism (aka Christofascism) that’s dominant in the US right now. Needless to say, this is so refreshing.

But it also means that a lot of these beautiful old sanctuaries and cathedrals often sit empty. Many of them — like Basel’s stunning Pauluskirche and Elisabethenkirche — have been transformed into shared public spaces featuring cafes, often used for the arts, lectures, and all kinds of collective gathering.

I love this. It feels exactly like what a sacred space should actually be: an inclusive, welcoming, non-dogmatic community hub thrumming with melodies and bustling with people; a warm beacon in the cold twilight.

I’ve always wanted to teach yoga in a sanctuary space like this, similar to the long-running Yoga On The Labyrinth program at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. Maybe 2024 is the year? We’ll see.

Wishing you everything still, quiet, and nourishing on this darkest, longest night of the year. 🕯️✨