A Candle in the Darkness

I freely admit that I am a difficult person to buy presents for. I wish it weren’t true, but I’ve even returned gifts given to me by the closest of family members. The small consolation that I feel is that I am not alone in this sad truth. According to the National Retail Federation, 17% of all goods sold during the winter holidays will be returned—that’s roughly $900 billion worth. But why? Are we a fickle people or is there something more profound at play? There is an undeniable intersection when a gift has both relational value and a unique poignancy to us. I cherish the bible given to me by the bishop who ordained me a priest. My husband fiercely protects the porcelain Christmas tree that belonged to his great grandmother. My fraternity brother’s daughter still goes to bed every night with the same Vermont Teddy Bear we got her a few Christmases ago. The right gift has the ability to convey something more meaningful than its monetized retail value. It can connect how we are seen by others with how we hope to see ourselves. Admittedly, most gifts can’t do that—which is why if they aren’t immediately useful they get returned. We know we shouldn’t equate gifts with love but it’s also impossible to deny the pure joy seen on a person’s face when you surprise them with a gift. The biggest mistake however is to assume that all gifts are material or fungible. I would argue that the most important part of a gift is its intangible value and that cannot be transferred. The bible I own isn’t a particularly unique translation and the book itself is not a first edition. It is however an artfully and intellectually well translated bible given by the bishop who consecrated me a priest on the day of that consecration, sacramentality intersecting with personal accomplishment. For Brendan, we actually own two porcelain Christmas Trees, but he can easily tell the difference between the two. In addition to their subtle differences based on decades of difference in age, the older one carries with it an heirloom sentimental value. And for Silvy, every young child yearns to feel safe at night, assured by being able to grasp onto something dependable when sleeping alone. As we journey into this next year around the sun, I wonder if we are also present to all the intangible yet equally important gifts we give each other all the time. For as much as we give physical objects, we also gift to one another every time we interact with another human being. Whether or not you believe that the very image of God is present in every life, every time we interact with another person we gift; we communicate our understanding of them and it directly engages with their own self-perceptions. All the ways we engage with one another are our behavioral gifts demonstrating how important we see another person’s life to be. As you ponder how you want to live your life in 2025, I invite you to remember that unlike a material good, your interactions cannot be taken back.

This Thanksgiving I had the rare opportunity to celebrate the holiday with my family back in Washington, D.C. Once there, there were two things I couldn’t miss: the Smithsonian exhibit on Impressionism and the Winter Holiday Market. Nestled in front of the National Portrait Gallery are over 30 vendors of various creative arts, from watercolor cityscapes and photography to the ‘all things smores’ food vendor. It should have been heaven and if it had been a Hallmark movie it would have been perfect. Sadly, real life is nothing like a Hallmark movie and it was chaos. I didn’t notice it in the moment but once I was free from the mayhem and able to reflect, I realized even crammed all together everyone just seemed to look past each other as they bobbed and weaved to make their ways through. The whole experience made me wonder, why is it so easy to forget a person’s humanity in a crowd. Whether you’re at the giant Holiday Market in Chicago, the Macys in Albany, or just browsing Northshire Bookstore during busy tourist days, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and swallowed up by the sheer volume of people. I can’t imagine it’s that enjoyable for the employees either. I remember working at a café, and sure I loved busy times because the day would just fly by, but at a certain point you lose yourself in the mayhem. If holiday markets are supposed to scratch that itch for festive joy and boutique craftiness while buying gifts for others, the social angst of being squished between shopped certainly ruins that experience. Why am I making such a big deal about it? Because shopping at holiday markets perfectly illustrates the Dr. Jekeil & Mr. Hyde parts of the human psyche. You don’t have to be anthropologist or clinical psychologist to recognize that there is genuine enjoyment in buying a gift for someone that you know they’ll love. It feels good to bring joy to others. But don’t get in a person’s way on their path to do it less you get squished and moshed in the process. When you’re out holiday shopping this year, do you look at the vast crowds of people you walk past? Do you take in the beauty that is the communal experience of the dozens—if not hundreds—of people all around you also on a journey to give and gift for others in their lives? Or do you tune them out as just another obstacle to get through? Do you forget that all those lives hurrying around you are also caring and loving souls? I fully confess my own guilt in perpetuating this sin for which we all succumb. At the DC Holiday Market I just couldn’t wait to get past all the people cramming their ways through the crowd. But whether you’re a person connected to a faith community or not, we humans are a communal people who together can be an unstoppable force for good in the world. When we stop seeing the humanity in the crowd, we inch closer and closer to losing the best part of ourselves. Whether you get 50% off, 30% off, or pay full price for your holiday gifts this year, I hope you remember just how uniquely precious you are and how uniquely precious those people in your way are too.

“Seek the Lord and His strength; Seek His face continually [longing to be in His presence]” (1st Chronicles 16:11, the Amplified Bible)

By the end of the 2016 games, Michael Phelps had won 28 medals, 23 of them gold, making him the most successful Olympic athlete of all time. In 1936, African American Jesse Owens single-handedly crushed Hitler’s “myth” of Aryan supremacy by being the most successful athlete at the Berlin games. During the 2020 games wunderkind gymnast Simone Biles tore down stigmas against mental health and wellness. Michael’s victory was our victory. Jesse’s victory was our victory. Simone’s victory was our victory. If you’ve seen her recent documentary, “I am,” you knew that Céline Dion has a debilitating neurological disease. And yet, she trained hard and delivered a powerful and emotive performance to open this year’s summer games. The Olympics has the power to inspire all of us to personal gold medals. In regrettable contrast, I’m sure we’ve all seen our fair share of R-rated political posters aimed more at tearing each other down then inspiring us to unite. If I had my way, we would move the presidential election cycle to the year before the Summer Olympics in hopes the games would heal the divisions which always seem to ignite with every election season. Every four years—two when we include the Winter Olympics—we find ways to come together to support each other. We find ourselves on the same side, not united against someone else because, well frankly, there are too many other countries and teams to be united against, and so we are just united. We cheer on the best of us because they inspire the best in us. Psychologists and sociologists overwhelmingly agree that we all need some form of companionship and community. We live in packs, and we congregate in communities—even though our four-legged friends seem easier to live with. Whether you’re tied to a specific faith community, spiritual but not religious, or religiously tied to secular life, all humans are communal. Sometimes those communities are small and sometimes those communities are large, but there’s a reason Jesus said, “when two or three are gathered, I am there.” There is a reason why there’s an Olympic Village.” There’s a reason why the Marines motto is Semper Fi. We thrive with each other. If the Olympics are meant to remind us of anything, it’s that we are more meant to unite than divide, to inspire rather than tear down, and to break barriers rather than create them. Our daily lives and daily behaviors should be a daily striving for personal gold medals—maybe not in the 100-meter dash or the 10-meter-high dive, but in how we treat each other. We should cheer each other on and share in our successes. Gold medalists inspire. They tear down divides, and they are fiercely loyal. So as the summer games come to a close and the elections get into higher gear, I guess my only question to you is…will you go for the gold with me?

Dear Friends and Family of Saint James, Perhaps it’s just me, but the world has seemed dark lately, more antagonistic than I remember it being even just ten years ago. Angst feels like the new normal. As Episcopalians, we are blessed with a liturgy to help us. This Lenten season on eucharist Sundays we’ve begun services without song, then intently prayed the Great Litany for ourselves, our church, and our world. But do not despair! Our tradition and our faith teach us something we can never forget; after each Good Friday there is a Resurrection Sunday. God can take brokenness, death, and darkness and give it new meaning through miracle. In the gospel of Mark we are told of a father begging Jesus to heal his son. The father declares, “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!” Even when we feel there is no hope, we believe there is. Believing in a God of the impossible is core to the Christian faith. Even when all feels foreign to our hearts, we trust that God is by our side, performing miracles so that we can accomplish what we never could on our own. I invite you, your family, your neighbors, and your friends to join us during Holy Week and on Easter morning for services to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. It is my hope, and God’s will, for the jubilation of the disciples encountering miracle to stir your heart to the same and that all may find hope in God’s abilities which surpass our own. Brendan, Charlie, and I wish you and yours: Blessed Easter and Happy Spring! The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you,  The Rev’d Jeremy Means-Koss Priest-in-Charge, the Parishes of St. Peter and St. James

I think at one point or another, each of us feels like we live on a NASCAR racetrack. I live near a Stewart's and can hear cars peeling down 7A. I’m sure the same can be said for those who live on the border of Shaftsbury and Bennington, or on Main St. in Bennington, or on routes 30 and 11 up north. It’s so bothersome that I wish I could just go out there and build my own speed bump out of gravel and tar and whatever else you build a speed bump out of. Sadly, I remember that snowplows would destroy them, and my Select Board would have a heart attack. A deep frustration with the world’s current issues—whether they be neighborhood focused or globally focused can get under our skin and eat away at the one thing prevalent in all human psyches: the need to feel like we are in control. Note, I didn’t say the need to be in control only to feel like we are in control. It’s hard not to think about how much we wish things would change and wonder if we could just fix them on our own or if they’ll ever change at all. Therapists and spiritual counselors alike will attest that one of the biggest challenges to emotional well-being is an instinctive fear that the big hungry animal is going to jump out of the forest and eat us alive—in other words that we will not be able to control and thus stop harm from coming towards us. While humans have evolved beyond that specific fear, that need to control the circumstances that surround us shows up in all our lives. When we feel out of control it raises our blood pressure, our anxieties, and our defense mechanisms. Sure, I totally wish I could build a speed bump and stop those speed-racers peeling down my street but what I wish more is that I knew how best to handle such challenges without trying to control everything. I’m not advocating acceptance of the circumstances life gives us. A car careening down the road is a danger and needs to be addressed. Particularly as we live in a world plagued by struggles and uncertainties both local and global, how do you find the strength to approach them with hope, courage, and resolve? Whether you’re spiritual but not religious, tied to a specific faith tradition, or religiously tied to secular life we all need to feel like we can trust the world around us to not jump out of the forest and eat us alive. The reality is that I don’t even have the skills to build a speed bump if I wanted to, but in an age of news cycles that won’t stop and relentless internet opinions, I need my body to normalize a confidence to handle whatever life may throw my way. For me, that’s my faith and God. For you it may be something else. Whatever it is, may it allow you to practice trusting in and giving control over because when you can do that, then you really are in control of your life.

Christmas is a holiday celebrated by more than just the average churchgoer. From music to decorations, the desire to participate in the festive spirit inspired by Christmas is palpable. For some of us, it’s a deeply religious time; for others, it still signifies a time of great joy and festive affection even without the more religious ideology. But as I gazed around post-New Years Day, admiring all the decorations still up I began to wonder: if Christmas isn’t fully connected to the Christian holiday for everyone then how do you know when to take down all those decorations? The tentative rule is that once the three kings/wise men visit the baby Jesus on the festival of Epiphany, then Christmas is officially over and the decorations come down. But over the years I’ve seen houses take them down immediately after Christmas and I’ve seen houses wait almost until Easter. One former neighbor of mine still had their roof lights up all through summer – I think they just didn’t want to bring them down. That doesn’t even begin to factor in when all the municipalities decide the holiday décor has lost its appeal and they need to make way for the next banners and festive decorations. My point is that even though there may be a logic to the deconstruction, it seems functionally disconnected from a spiritual practice. Or is it? All of us, spiritual and secular alike, are bound by the same realities of the universe: creation and mortality, birth and death. Even if you believe in the assumptions of Elijah and Mary, no one has the brazen arrogance to think they will escape the cycle of life like they did. Although it may not be something we always talk about, want to talk about, or want to even consider, the realities of our human existence always exist beneath the surface of our conscious mind. And yet, even when the conscious mind evades such realities, we can find nudges even in the most mundane tasks, reminders that creation and destruction, birth and death, are all around us. I’ve read a number of poems and articles that talk about Spring and Winter as metaphoric times of mortal contemplation but as I take down my own decorations I began to see birth and death play out in the most cyclical and normative way. I began to notice that even the act of decorating and un-decorating is a way that we experience birth to and death to an entire visage of the season. The acts are both wondrous and mundane in what they are and what they unconsciously symbolize. Beyond their aesthetic properties, we often forget how psychological it is to control the forces of life and death in our own lives – even in such small ways as putting up lights and taking them back down again. Birth and death are things we encounter over and over again, sometimes within our control and other times without. Whether you’re spiritual but not religious, tied to a specific faith tradition, or religiously tied to secular life, we all participate in acts that figuratively play out the notions of creation and destruction in our lives. They help reinforce for us how limited our human experiences are on earth. As we finish taking down all the decorations this season, I wonder if we might begin to recognize the enumerable ways we all encounter birth and loss, and if that might fill us with more empathy for each other. This article was originally published on Jan 10, 2024 in the Bennington Banner

When I was younger, Thanksgiving was the most important holiday to me. For me and my friends, religious holidays were always occupied by familial obligations. Thanksgiving was different. It was just secular enough for people to have more freedom with their time off. It was during these precious times when my friends-who-were-like-family could all gather and share in fellowship and love. We gathered together solely by choice and not obligation, to cherish each other without drama or baggage, and our Thanksgiving gratitudes were always for each other. For me, the secular holiday was a holy day. I’m not saying the traditional history of Thanksgiving isn’t deeply problematic—we should still strive to make America better for our indigenous brothers and sisters—but my friends and I never celebrated the holiday’s history. We repurposed that national holiday, steeping it in gratitude and love. Human beings are a social people. We rely so heavily on our social positioning that most, if not all, of our identities are formulated in-relation to other people. The U.S. Supreme Court, in their rulings about gender politics acknowledge that all genders exist in direct relationship with each other. How we experience ourselves is directly related to the way we interact and engage with others. For me, if religious holidays are about the love for the Divine, then days like Thanksgiving are meant to be about the love for Neighbor. But as I am inundated with Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, I am left wondering, whatever happened to Thanksgiving? Whatever happened to the holiday that for me was a holy day? Holidays can be a tricky time for everyone regardless of their cultural or religious traditions. It is a time when those who lack can feel that lacking even more intensely. It is a time for those who commemorate a faithful event to share in jubilee and piety. It’s a time for big families to reconvene and small families to share cozy time together. It can also be a time when our loneliness breaches the barriers of our emotional fortitude and breaks down our wellbeing. But bleaching those moments through retail therapy doesn’t really cure the malaise that these holidays can produce. If human behavior is the solidifying of habits, then our deeply broken world is a product of continuously selfish and harmful individual habits and behaviors that create societal norms. Allowing special times of fellowship to be edged out by material gratification and monetization will only fortify our global descent into the abyss. But whether we seek to change destructive habits through faith filled acts like prayer, or through practices like behavioral therapy, change is always possible. Whether you’re spiritual but not religious, tied to a specific faith tradition, or religiously tied to secular life, we all yearn for connection to a family and we are all gifted with the ability to produce familial love with those around us—whether they be families by blood or by choice. This Thanksgiving Day, I encourage you to take a pause from all the retail hype that may try to sweep over you and take inventory of the people who cherish you and whom you cherish. And remember to find and cultivate those precious moments to share that love. This article was originally published on November 17, 2023 in the Bennington Banner

As I stood on Main Street in Bennington, watching the parade go past in honor of Battle Day, I witnessed parade onlookers sharing popcorn, stories, and even the gofundme link for the young man who passed in Arlington. I saw little kids racing for candy thrown in their direction. I saw friends and strangers laughing together. It was a powerful moment when you consider just how different we are, even in this corner of Vermont. Towards the end of last spring, I wrote about the gift that festivals bestow upon us, the coming together of vast peoples—the tribute that we are not alone. Sadly, we don’t get Battle Day parades every day and sometimes it isn’t easy to feel unity amongst all our diversity. Social theorists like Michael Maffesoli note that in our "tribalist" natures, we yearn to find ways to socially categorize. We do this to help us create community — to find others like us. And yet, in those similarities we seem to foster differences too. Must our quests to find similarities and solidarity be exclusionary? I would be negligent if I didn’t acknowledge the atrocities and violence that religion and faith communities have sanctioned, created, or perpetuated over the past few millennia but I also cannot forget one of the most famous Christian scriptures that roots my very way of being. It emphasizes the collapsing of all material identities for the sake of love by the same divine being. Whether you’re spiritual but not religious, tied to a specific faith tradition, or religiously tied to secular life, our human hearts yearn to be connected to others and we find countless examples of ways that we seek to not only divide but unify. Look no further than the countless Vermont state flags that were held by parade marchers not in spite of their unique identities but salient through them. If we are to find unity amongst diversity we must constantly strive to find ways that foster our identities not in spite of our differences but somehow quilting them together. I am grateful that my faith tradition provides that path, but there are many avenues to universal social reach. In college I was a member of a Greek social fraternity and sweetheart to two sororities — one historically black and one historically white. While in college there was division among all the various fraternities and sororities It was all playful but still divisive. After college I remember talking to a friend of mine in "a different org" and she commented how wonderful it was to know members of other Greek organizations regardless of their specific identification because they had shared experiences, usually even if they went to different schools. Can we find ways to expands our limited categories into something that doesn’t exclude but instead finds ways to include? Can we find new categories or old ones that reinforce not the ways we are different but the ways we are united? For some, a faith tradition helps us treasure unity amongst diversity. For others it’s the many civic services that are volunteer based such as town rescue squads and fire departments that were displayed during the Battle Day parade. However you find a way to quilt your identity together with other human lives, know that it is in our nature to not only divide but to unify. This article was originally published on Aug. 17, 2023, in the Bennington Banner .