Successful wassailing demands an uncomfortable degree of movement.
I鈥檓 not talking about the swaying of hips or the smacking of lips or the gentle tapping of a foot. I鈥檓 talking about risk taking. I鈥檓 talking about the bodily thrust of our very selves out and into the harshness of the elements and upon the fickle kindness of strangers.
True wassailing does not happen in an armchair by the fire with a hot cup of cider held lightly in warming hands. Wassailing requires the getting up and the getting out and the getting upon the well-worn path. Wassailing is a call to community 鈥� and a call upon others, that they might extend the hospitable hand of community to those who sit huddled and shivering upon their doorstep.
Wassailing, I鈥檇 say, demands a certain spiritual disposition. Persistence, for one: Wassailers roam about their neighborhoods offering carols and wishes of good health in exchange for food, drink and merriment. How many neighbors slam the door, turn of the lights and shoo these well-wishers to the curb?
Wassailing requires an embrace of that which is uncomfortable. Not only the uncertainty of the elements 鈥� the snow and wind and ice 鈥� but the possibility of uncharitable replies. And yet, the wassailer plunges again and again into the breach, into the open air, into the possibility of cold rejection, all for the chance of shared delight and joy.
Wassailing necessarily demands joy. How else can a wassailer be sustained in the wintry air and against the dour rejection of unwilling neighbors? If there is no joy, what is it a wassailer is offering? What sort of blessing of good health and good cheer can a joyless heart extend?
鈥淕ower Wassail鈥� is a traditional wassailing song from the southwest peninsula of Wales. There are many versions and many other worthy wassailing songs, but this one 鈥� and this particular rendition by the 鈥淥h Hellos鈥� 鈥� is haunting. It carries us along on a drift of folkloric magic, on the whims of spirits long gone and the dreams of forest creatures buried deep within the soil. There is an eagerness to it, a casting into the wild, a hope-filled dance that such reckless abandon will be rightly rewarded. And yet, there is the ever-present specter of death, of failure, of shadow and rejection.
Still, the wassailers know they are where they are needed: not too soon, not too high, not too far, just within sound.
And I wonder: Is this wassailing disposition not the very heart of Advent? Is it not the tilling the frozen soil of our very souls in preparation for God鈥檚 arrival at Christmas? Isn鈥檛 the Christmas story 鈥� the coming of Christ 鈥� a story of persistence and discomfort and joy? And isn鈥檛 it a tale of movement, a spirituality intrinsically interwoven with a God who draws ever near?
Christmas is one week from today. Let鈥檚 get up. Let鈥檚 get out. Let鈥檚 get upon the path and ensure our wassailing spirits are let loose. Let us not be caught joyless.
