Surviving the Holidays: The Holiday Bill of Rights

The winter holiday season begins next week with Thanksgiving.  The holidays can be difficult for many reasons, including the loss of a loved one (especially during the past year), emotional and physical health issues, addictions, family relationships, and financial difficulty.  This year, in the wake of the election many of us have the added stress of fearing what’s to come politically. Some of us are fearing for our physical safety and the safety of loved ones.  It’s my hope that everyone has what they feel is an emotionally and physically safe place to be for the holidays. 

Each year at this time, I circulate a resource I’ve found to be helpful both personally and pastorally for surviving the holidays. This resource is the Holiday Bill of Rights.  Originally published many years ago by the American Psychological Association as the Griever’s Bill of Rights, I think it applies to many people, not just those who are grieving for various reasons.   For all who may find it useful, I present the Holiday Bill of Rights. You can download a copy here.

The Holiday Bill of Rights

The Holiday Bill of Rights Scroll

1. You have the right to say, “time out” anytime you need. Time out to blow off a little steam, step away from the holidays and have a “huddle” and start over.

2. You have the right to “tell it like it is”. When people ask, “How are you?” You have the right to tell them how you really feel as well as the right to smile and say you’re fine because telling them how you really feel isn’t worth your time. Some people will never understand anyway.

3. You have the right to some “bah humbug” days. You are not a bad person just because you don’t feel like being festive right now or today or this week.

4.You have the right to do things differently. There is no law that says you must always do the Holidays the same way you have always done. You can have a vegan Thanksgiving dinner instead of turkey. You can open can go without a Christmas tree or spend New Year’s Eve watching movies with a friend.  You can be creative and start a new tradition.

5.You have the right to celebrate holidays where you want to be, at home or at a relative’s place or with a group of friends.  There’s no law that says you must stay home, or you must go someplace.

6. You have the right to some fun. When you have a day that isn’t so bad and you feel like doing something for fun, then do it. Laughter is every bit as important and healing as tears.

7. You have the right to change your mind or change direction in mid-stream. You may be all ready to go somewhere or do something and suddenly you are overwhelmed or don’t feel like it. When that happens, it’s okay to change your mind.

8. You have the right to do things at different times. You can go to church or temple at a different time than you have in the past. You can serve a meal at a different time; go to bed at a different time.

9. You have the right to rest, peace, and solitude. You don’t need to be busy all the time. Take a nap whenever you need one. Take time to pray and to meditate, to recharge your spirit - it may do you better than eating another huge meal.

10. You have the right to do it all differently again next year. Just because you change things one year and try something different does not mean you have to do it exactly the same way next year.

Hope is Resistance: Recommend Resistance Reading Part 2

Hope is resistance and rebellion and these six books inspire hope and courage, helping you resist tyranny and injustice. Hope is also resistance reading, especially books about hope! Many of us are still circling around somewhere in the stages of grief. Part of what we need right now is hope. Hope isn’t blind optimism. That type of hope is bigoted and useless. Pie in the sky wishing for the privileged is not going to help us.  What we need is a strong courageous hope that comes to life in memories and stories of struggle and survival. Hope is a process as much as a feeling.  Hope comes from a profound trust that there is and can be goodness, love, and justice and doing something to make those things real. 

I recommend to you books that have grounded me in a just and realistic hope.  Three of these books are fiction. These novels and novella are stories that provide you with an opportunity to image how things can be better, and relish the good, the kindness, and the compassion in the world.  Three of the books are non-fiction and focus on hope from the perspective of spirituality, political organizing, and philosophy.

All the books I discuss in these Recommended Resistance Reading posts are generally available at public libraries, bookstores, and through online booksellers. Please purchase them used or from independent or minority owned bookstores, if you’re going to buy a copy.  

Hope springs from these six books

FICTION

• A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers

• The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

• Hope Punk: Hope is an Act of Resistance by Preston Norton

A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers is a utopian, not dystopian, work of science fiction about a world that has gone through the worst of ecological devastation and over-reliance on technology run amok and come out on the other side. The story centers on a monk and a robot who form a unique friendship and together explore what it means to be human, to be good, and to be alive.

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig is an exemplary work of magical realism that deals with themes including ecological collapse, political corruption, and person integrity.  A mysterious energy or being found in the ocean of a Spanish island sustains and heals the planet and its people. The protagonists fight against political power and corruption that endanger the environment. 

Hope Punk: Hope is an Act of Resistance by Preston Norton is a YA novel about a teenager who battles spiritually abusive Christian fundamentalism with queer family and friends who finds out that hope isn’t just an emotion, it’s a tool of rebellion and survival.  And as all punks know, love and music are such tools as well.  

“Hope Punk” is also the name of an entire genre of science fiction. The term was coined by fantasy author Alexandra Rowland in a 2017 tumblr post that went viral across other platforms as well, where she wrote “The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk. Pass it on.”  Grimdark stories are nihilistic, dystopian, amoral, and violent.  In grimdark stories there are no heroes, even the protagonists you might come to root for aren’t great people. The mood tends to be cynical and disheartening.  Nothing matters and what if it did?  Hopepunk is the opposite. And although there’s debate about whether hopepunk is a sub-genre, it certainly is a theme and a trope and vibe.  What makes it punk is the anti-establishment and resistance to oppression present in the work.  Alexandra Rowland further explained her take on hopepunk in essays and interviews. She noted that Hopepunk is a refutation of the glass is half empty lazy nihilism of grimdark. Hopepunk reminds us, as Rowland noted in an interview “kindness and softness doesn’t equal weakness, and that in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion.”

NONFICTION

• HOPE: A User’s Manual by Maryann McKibben Dana

• Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown

• Embracing Hope: On Freedom, Responsibility, and the Meaning of Life by Viktor E. Frankl

HOPE: A User’s Manual by Maryann McKibben Dana is self-help workbook for training yourself to be more hopeful. McKibben Dana is a Presbyterian minister and this work does have Christian spiritual references (not too many for a non-Christian reader), but she is careful to provide alternate wording and ways of thinking of things if a Christian approach doesn’t work for you. The books is organized into short chapters of only a couple pages each with questions for reflection at the end along with a practical challenge such as “write a poem that uses the phrase ‘hope draws near when’… or  “take a walk in nature and find an imperfect natural object to remind yourself imperfect is beautiful.”

Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown (not a typo, she spells her name this way) is a reflection on the need for joy and pleasure to sustain us, especially in the work of fighting injustice and creating beloved community.  Fun and pleasure are not luxuries reserved for the privileged and powerful, but the birthright of being human.

Embracing Hope: On Freedom, Responsibility, and the Meaning of Life by Viktor E. Frankl is a collection of interviews, lectures, and articles spanning decades. All them revolve around Frankl’s central philosophical theme of surviving and creating meaning even in the face of injustice and death.

a summary of progressive christian theology

This video is an introduction to Creation Spirituality using Appendix B of the book "Original Blessing" by Matthew Fox. It contrasts original sin with original blessing through comparing traditional Fall and Redemption theology with Creation Spirituality. This quick comparison is an excellent summary of liberal, progressive, Christian theology and liberal religion in general.

In "Original Blessing, Fox invites us to rethink our fundamental beliefs about humanity's relationship with the divine. Moving away from the traditional notion of “original sin,” Fox illuminates a path toward embracing our innate goodness and the inherent blessings of existence. Fox replaces the three path journey of Christian mysticism through purgation, illumination, and union, with the four paths of creation spirituality that he name the Via Positiva, the Via Negativa, the Via Creativa, and the Via Transformativa.

Over 40 years after its publication Original Blessing is still an invitation to rediscover the sacredness of our world and to live in harmony with the blessings that surround us through a renewal and revival based in Creation Spirituality that is vibrant, inclusive, and ecologically aware."