​by Patrick D. Heery
 I wasn’t there when my grandfather died. But I can picture the moment as if I had been.
I see snow falling in large, wet clumps. It’s dark but for the flickering, harsh light of a single parking lot lamp. Within its rays I catch a glimpse of my uncle, kneeling over my grandfather, desperately trying to pump life back into his father’s heart, breath back into his namesake’s lungs. The CPR isn’t working, however.
It’s cold, so the tears are freezing to my uncle’s face. He had only been away for a few minutes. The two of them had driven to the local hardware store for a last minute need. But when they had arrived, my grandfather said he wasn’t feeling well, and so he stayed in the car while my uncle ran inside. By the time my uncle returned, my grandfather—just a couple months into retirement—had suffered a major heart attack and died.
It was Christmas Eve. Thirty-three years ago.
I know that it was 33 years ago because I was born a year later, also in December. 
My family said I was an answered prayer—the only thing that made Christmas bearable, a season now marred by the anniversary of my grandfather’s death.
Truth is the holidays can be difficult for many people. Amid bright lights and festive parties, some of us feel very alone. We may be grieving the death of a loved one or the dream of a loved one never to be. We may be parted from family or friends—or from children by divorce or the estrangement of time. We may be struggling with addiction, or wondering how we’re going to come up with the money to buy gifts for our family this year (or even how we’re going to keep the lights on). We may be facing the new year from a hospital bed, or a nursing home, or a rehab center, or a prison.
Or perhaps we just didn’t feel the Christmas spirit this year—we were too busy or too stressed, while God was too silent.
On December 21, Westminster Presbyterian Church gathered with members of the Auburn community on the longest night of the year to light candles in the dark—one for our grief, one for our courage, one for our memories, one for our love, and one, in the center, for Christ. The community of the faithful gathered as it has every year for the last 12 years to call on Christ to come once again and fill our broken hearts.
This was my first experience of Westminster’s Service of the Longest Night, but I have participated in similar (also known as Blue Christmas) services at other churches. Last year, the church my wife and I visited in Kentucky gave away hand-knit prayer shawls. This year, Westminster gave each person a wooden candleholder, hand carved by elder Robyn Warn and containing a candle lit that evening in memory of a loved one or a prayer yet unanswered.
That night we listened for the good news and sang of the hope that would soon be found again in a manger. We turned our eyes toward the light and found comfort there. And yet, we did not hurry through the pain; we did not rush toward Christmas. Sometimes, when you’re hurting, you just need folks to stop trying to fix everything and instead be in solidarity with your grief. You don’t want to hear that “God has a plan,” or that “God just wanted another angel,” or that “God never gives us more than we can handle.” You don’t want advice. You just want exactly what Christ offered—Emmanuel, “God with us.” You want a companion for the darkness, someone to hold you tight and let you cry.
Rachel Whaley Doll, a friend who struggled with infertility, says, “The most beautiful thing a church member said to me during our struggle was ‘This just sucks, and I had words with God today about you.’ ”
So, I guess you could say, we too had words with God that evening. We brought it all—the pain, the anger, the fear, the hope, the joyful memories and longings, even the doubts. God accepted every bit, and answered, as God always has, not with cheap fixes or platitudes, but with the love of a child who suffers with us and, with a gentle kiss, heals our wounds.
We called this child, Jesus, the Messiah.

by Jill Fandrich
​I’m a sucker for those videos of “flash mobs” that pop up on YouTube or Facebook. A flash mob takes place in some kind of public space—a city square, a shopping mall, a train station. Suddenly, someone starts to sing, or dance, or play an instrument, and then others join them and within minutes the area is transformed into a sea of smiling faces and clapping hands. Suddenly, there is community! When it’s over, everyone goes back to whatever they were doing, but with a smile on their face, a song in their heart, and a lighter step. I get a lump in my throat every time I watch one of these videos.
There was even a sort of flash mob in Auburn on Thanksgiving weekend. On Saturday night, after the parade, people gathered in the city parking lot to sing Leonard Cohen’s beautiful “Hallelujah.” 
I think there’s something important going on here. These events happen because of a real need to be together. People crave community in a world that is increasingly private. We watch movies from home rather than go to theaters, we download books rather than go to the library, and we exercise on home treadmills rather than go to the gym. We order things from Amazon, get money from machines, and pump our own gas. We can easily go through our days without talking to other people.
While we can’t deny the convenience of modern technology, we are missing something important too. We are losing the ability to engage with people on a personal level. We have fewer opportunities to talk and listen to people face to face. Even though social media connects us to others, it also lets us choose whom we listen to, and it is far too easy to surround ourselves with voices like our own.  
And with this silo effect comes a loss of civil discourse.  The recent election shows how far we’ve fallen in our ability to talk respectfully with each other. It is too easy, with the anonymity of screen names, to talk in ways we wouldn’t face to face.
This fall, the Wednesday Noon Discussion Group at my church read Parker Palmer’s Healing the Heart of Democracy and discussed how Americans can reclaim the political process to improve our ability to live and work together. Palmer says, “Democracy demands that we become engaged with ‘the other’ as well as with ‘our own kind,’ with the stranger whose viewpoint, needs, and interests are likely to be different from our own.”  He acknowledges, however, that engaging with people who are different creates tension because it forces us to live with the contradictions that run counter to our own convictions.  But it is living in that tension that “opens us up to new understandings of ourselves and the world, enhancing our lives and allowing us to enhance the lives of others.”
Palmer is a believer in “the power of the potluck,” as well as in many other ways we can bring people together to listen, to talk, and to get to know each other. The more we do to break down the silos we have created, the more we will grow in our ability to live and work with people who are different than ourselves.
We are fortunate in Auburn to have places where we do gather. We have Auburn Public Theater, the YMCA, First Fridays, the permaculture park, festivals, and Wegmans. We will soon have a new play-space downtown. And we have churches.