‘Celebration is a grace because it comes unmerited from the hand of God. It is also a Discipline because there is work to be done… Joy is found in the assurance of being rooted and grounded in God’. (Richard Foster)
My year of training in the disciplines month by month ended with celebration. With the arrival of a new baby, and with Christmas approaching, there felt like ample reason to celebrate anyway.
Eating and drinking, gathering together, music and flamboyance, dancing and laughter – the community among whom we lived in Ibiza regularly gathered in celebration. Fiestas, carnivals, street processions, street parties, saints days – not to mention gatherings among friends to celebrate birthdays, christenings, homecomings…we used to joke about there being more days off than there were ‘work’ days, but something of the scheduled celebration shaped us.
Thinking and reading about celebration, I realise that my spirituality has grown to incorporate celebration naturally over the last few years. The combination of challenging circumstances in my personal and work life, and living on an island whose lifeblood is celebration, has forged a love and a need for regular times of party – celebration – feasting.
Celebration is not just an attitude but also something that we do. (R Foster)
I realise that sharing food has become priority for us as a means for work and friendship, mission and devotion. We leap at the opportunity to celebrate and congratulate – be it an achievement, a wedding, a birthday, or a breakthrough in a personal situation. Celebration allows us to take stock and recognise where we have experienced the goodness of God in life. It is a means of giving worth and value to someone, and fleshing out God’s delight, care and interest for His children. And it is a reminder that one day we will join the heavenly feast – a taste of what is to come.
Celebration gives us perspective on ourselves…Perhaps the most important benefit of celebration is that it saves us from taking ourselves too seriously. (R Foster)
Celebration gives an opportunity for play and humour – infact I think it requires it. I think we learn a lot about who we think God is and who we think we are, when we approach the discipline of celebration. It is unlikely to produce a ‘result’ and will probably consume time and money to facilitate, and sometimes I have had to remove a ‘this money could be better spent on other things’ mindset over some of the celebrating we have done.
Celebrating with children involved helps remove any serious self-illusions and helps us locate and dwell in joy. Sol discovered a love for making star decorations for our Christmas tree and so almost daily, I sat down with him to make a star from wooden sticks and glitter. This became a way for me to daily celebrate the coming of Christmas as our tree became full of these stars: simple, joyful, communal, deliberate celebration.
Celebration is one of those things that does not diminish with use. Rather it multiplies. (R Foster)
Humanity finds a common ground in celebration. Life for many of us is plagued with sorrow and hardship; celebration punctuates this with moments of joy – a respite from the daily grind and monotony, an excuse to laugh and play. It is a concrete way for God’s love, light and joy to be expressed among us – a way of expressing who we are and demonstrating more of who God is. It is not partying without a point, but a way of standing up to hopelessness and sorrow though thanksgiving and identifying something that is good and God-given. Celebration demands that we shake off apathy – it is hard to really celebrate something we care little about.
Celebration could so easily become relegated in our minds as secondary to the ‘more serious and holy’ disciplines, and be engaged with only when there seems good enough reason or obvious availability of time and money to resource it. But I believe that celebration is a means of survival for those surrounded by despair, and for all of us, a way of regularly nourishing the soul to sustain us on the long road ahead of discipleship.
Great or small, lavish or simple, the discipline of celebration requires us to regularly discover God’s goodness and pause to be thankful for it. Drawing others into this act of remembrance makes for communal gratitude and beckons a generosity of spirit, a love for one another and a hunger for more of God.
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