"The flaming chalice, like our faith, stands open
to receive new truths that pass the tests
of reason, justice and compassion."
-Daniel Hotchkiss

Full service
Selected sermons
Home

Ahh, December. The holiday season is in full-force, with people all around wishing others Merry Christmas, or, in the case of my family, Happy Holidays. We are definitely a Happy Holidays sort of family. We celebrate the mostly-secular version of Christmas, with a tree and gifts. We touch just a bit on the birth of Jesus and focus a lot more on Santa Claus and presents. The kids came home from school last week asking if we were going to participate in Saint Nicholas Day, where kids put shoes outside and in the morning wake up to find them filled with fruit, nuts and candy. A few years ago, they enjoyed a Santa Lucia Day complete with a young girl wearing a battery operating candle-crown. They know the Dreidal song and we are looking forward to celebrating Yule with the CUUPS group on December 20th. And they are learning more about Kwanza because there are kids in their school who celebrate it. As I said, we are a "Happy Holidays" kind of family.

Even still, I was unprepared for a conversation that my third grader, Evelyn, and I had earlier this week.

"Mommy, mommy! When is Chalica???!" she asked.

I looked at her, with puzzlement. "It starts on Monday" I told her.

"Do we get off from school?"

"No sweetie, you don't."

"But it's a holiday."

"Really, its more like a celebration," I said. "One that most people haven't heard of - including most Unitarian Universalists."

"Am I the only one in my school who knows about it?" She inquired.

"Could be," I said. "Could be."

A quick poll. Raise your hands if you had heard of Chalica prior to this week.

Like most everyone here, most Unitarian Universalists have not heard of it, which is really not surprising since this is only been around for a few years. And if most of us haven't heard of it as a UU celebration, well, no one else has either.

Evelyn had heard John and I talking about and had latched onto it. But behind Evelyn's questions about Chalica, I heard her asking something deeper: "Who are we as Unitarian Universalists? Where do we fall in all these holidays? What makes us a UU family?" She wondered to me later, about whether our holidays are still real even if most people don't know who we are as UUs.

Rituals define us. They mark the changing of seasons, the cycles of life. Our celebrations identify who we are, where we come from, who we understand to be our people. It was this primal need for ritual that was expressed in Evelyn's questions, and it was this primal need for ritual that led Daylene Marshall, a woman from British Columbia, to suggest the celebration of Chalica in 2005. Daylene decided that a winter holiday to honor the UU principles would be a community-building and unifying celebration. In 2007, she sent out details and an invitation on the social networking site facebook, and it really picked up some steam. Chalica continues to grow grassroots-style, with people discovering and refining it each year. A few years ago, a young man named Evan Austin wrote a Chalica parody of Adam Sandler's "Chanukah song." This year, Dan Flores wrote the song Chalica/Infinite Light that we read as a reading.

As a celebration, Chalica was conceived as being is quite easy and low stress. Here is how it works: Chalica is a seven day celebration that starts on the first Monday in December - tomorrow. The general practice is to light a chalice in your home each day in honor of one of the seven principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association. (It is almost eerily convenient that there are seven of them :) ) Just as our symbol of the chalice stands open to receive new truths that pass the tests of reason, justice, and compassion, so does Chalica urge us to look within for these truths, and then find ways to manifest them in our lives.

Day one of the celebration, tomorrow, connects to our first principle: to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. The children's version of this principle is often expressed as "Respect All People." On this first day of Chalica, you would light a chalice, and think or talk about what this principle means, and how you might practice it on this day. You may send a thank-you card to someone very different than you for challenging you in some way, or provide a peace offering to someone with whom you are in struggle. You might write a letter to your congresspeople in support of equal marriage rights for all, or volunteer at a homeless shelter/soup kitchen. The ways to practice the meaning you find in the principle are up to you and can range from the very easy to the involved.

Day two of Chalice honors our desire for justice, equity and compassion in human relations. Or, in easier to understand language, that we try to offer fair and kind treatment to everyone. Again, we light a chalice and think or talk about the principle, and how we might live it on that particular day. You might really dig into the stories and purpose of the Guest at Your Table boxes we gave out two weeks ago, or join the "Standing on the Side of Love" campaign of the UUA. You may donate to an organization that promotes social change even if your donation is not tax deductible or give a membership in the Southern Poverty Law Center to a loved one.

Ways that we might honor the third principle, about acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations, might include donating a hymnal so that there would be enough for everyone in this gathered community, help the UU Military office provide a pocket-size collection of poems, prayers and hymns reflecting the values of Unitarian Universalism for Armed Service men and women, or approach someone in the church that you may have had a disagreement with and practice agreeing to disagree.

The fourth day of Chalica falls on Thursday, and celebrates how we engage in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning; that we search for what is true. What does this fourth principle mean to you? Perhaps you take part in an event that celebrates another religion; You could find a blogger, newspaper, website - some media - that you totally disagree with, and rather than shutting it out, try to understand where it is coming from and why other people might be in agreement with it. Kind of like having to debate the opposite of what you believe...

The fifth day of Chalica affirms the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large. Or, simplified, that all people need a voice. You might want to sign up to participate in the congregation in a new way, or donate to a political party, or you might decide to become familiar with Roberts Rules of Order and how your congregation is structured! Or you might take a family vote on what to have for dinner.

The sixth day speaks to our desire for world community with peace, liberty and justice for all; our desire to build a fair and peaceful world. You could participate in a Habitat for Humanity build, or attend an event from Interfaith Paths to Peace, or learn more about human trafficking. You may even want to join our Mission and Outreach Ministry to help plan an event for next years Chalica celebration. Or maybe you just decide not to yell at your kids all day - peace begins within each of us.

Finally, the seventh day, Sunday, we affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. After lighting a chalice and talking or thinking about what this principle might mean to you, you may decide to start a compost pile, or donate to our Solar Panel fund. Or replace those lightbulbs you had been meaning to replace but never got around to. But don't forget to come to our Youth Holiday Celebration, because whether you have children or not, we are each interdependent on one another in this community!

Seven days, seven important ideas. You can think about and decide what each individual principle means to you, and how you might act on it or live it on that day. As it is idealized, Chalica is light on labor and expectation, and high on intentionality and connection. It provides a lovely counterpoint to the commercialism that other holidays inspire this time of year.

Just as new ideas are often finessed and critiqued, so has this been occurring with Chalica. Critics have called it cultural appropriation, based on the strong influences from Chanukah and Kwanza. But I don't see it that way at all. Cultural appropriation is the adoption of some specific elements of one culture by a different cultural group. When these elements are removed from their traditional context, they often take on meanings that are significantly different from those they originally held. But I don't believe this is the case with Chalica. We do have seven principles, and we do regularly light a chalice as a part of our own worship.

Instead, I see Chalica as a way of enacting and reflecting on our living tradition, allowing ourselves to be influenced by the many sources from which we draw. It is not a copy-cat celebration, we are not taking parts of other rituals and calling them our own, but are instead creating our own unique ritual that is influenced by the various traditions which Unitarian Universalism itself is influenced by.

Other critics claim that Chalica elevates the seven principles to a creed, which is a serious no-no in our creed-less faith. Again, however, I disagree. A creed is a statement of belief. Part of the idea of Chalica is to talk about what the specific principle means to you - to look at it deeply. It may be that you believe in the principle, but you may not. It may be you think deeply about whether inherent worth and dignity is something that can ever be lost. Or perhaps you end up having a conversation about whether the democratic process really is all that. We can critique - but in the end, in the critique itself, in the debate itself, we are looking more closely at our faith. Examining it, and deepening it in the process. Chalica encourages us to use the principles not as an endpoint or creedal statement, but instead as a starting place for intentional thought and conversation.

Last year, Reverend Cindy Landrum, in Michigan, wrote about her first Chalica practice. Each day, she wrote her reflections on her blog, and then would choose a charity to donate to that connected with the principle of the day. Rather than give willy-nilly at the end of the year to squeeze in the tax deductions, she used Chalica as a way to take an intentional approach to her giving. She said that the results were interesting to her: "What I was looking for, and got, was a way to connect to my own religious beliefs in the winter holiday season. Focusing on the principles in the way that I did has made Christmas itself more meaningful to me." "This was an opportunity to better my character, in that search for living my religion."

East coast blogger ChaliceChick recognized both the need for us to create our own rituals, and the difficulty in doing so when she wrote that she thinks "in midwinter when most of the trees look dead and it's cold, we all have an urge to come together and take care of each other and remind each other to be of good cheer because no matter how chilly and bleak it might be, spring is coming. I don't think it's an accident ," she writes, "that lots of religions tap into those feelings and have a midwinter celebration and while this may be a pretty clumsy attempt to do the same, I don't think it's such a bad mistake to try."

Clumsy or not, I am looking forward to my first celebration of Chalica this year. We have a family chalice. I have printed out the regular and kid-friendly versions of the Principles. We have planned to light a chalice and talk about the principle each morning at breakfast - to find a way to practice the principle in the day ahead. Hopefully, at dinnertime, we can reflect on how the day went as we tried to apply what we had talked about.

I had no idea my daughter had even heard of Chalica. But she latched onto it because it provided something she craved - a celebration that is particularly Unitarian Universalist; a celebration that might more deeply connect her with her religious identity. Chalica won't get her out of school, but it may help her figure out who she is, and what she believes.

We human beings crave ritual, and we crave identity, and this depth of meaning. This is precisely why the idea of Chalica came into being. Whether you decide to try this low-stress celebration or not, may you and yours find ways to explore and deepen your faith this holiday season.

Full service
Selected sermons
Return to top
Home