Cider and Songs

Tonight, I called up a friend of mine from college and told her to go on an adventure with me.

There's a little chapel in Vineland that's no bigger than the average person's living room, built by a local family a century ago and cared for by three generations. It's a historic site, and every year the Saint Barbara Chapel is decked out with a beautiful Nativity scene.

But what drew me there was their annual Christmas sing along. At 7 the chapel fills with members of the founding family, devotees of Saint Barbara and other locals who are just looking for some holiday cheer. We pray the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, retell the story of Christ's birth, drink cider and eat cookies together.

The rest of the night is spent singing every carol you can think of and then some, accompanied by weathered strains of recordings from an old cassette. Most of the folks there can really carry a tune, and some are brave enough to contribute a harmony part. All told, it's a night of laughter, simplicity and peace.

When I first stumbled upon the chapel a year ago, America was reeling in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shootings that killed six adults and 20 children.

I can remember sitting in front of the Nativity scene and trying to make sense of it all. How could a loving God allow something like this? Where does such brutality fit in the grand scheme?

This time last year, many I knew had lost jobs in end-of-quarter layoffs, and a family friend I grew up with passed away after a sudden, tragic illness. He was only a few years my senior.

And this year I returned with a similarly heavy heart. My family is struggling with loss in more ways than we are ready for, barely two months after the death of my grandmother.

It's a lot for anybody, I think.

No matter what's going on in my life, though, St. Barbara's fills me with badly needed hope.

I don't find answers to all of the "whys" there. I don't leave with my doubts silenced and problems solved.

But I do leave remembering that this is why God sent Jesus here in the first place. He was fully human and experienced everything we do: loss, anger, temptation, grief, pain.

His life, death and eventual rising from the dead make one grand statement: Take heart. Things will not be this bad forever. There is hope. There is peace in the midst of all this chaos.

Jesus is Emmanuel, "God with us." He really is with us in everything, working quietly, making things new.

As dark as life can get, there is light everywhere if we look hard enough ... even in the bottom of a cup of cider.