The Longest Night

The longest night of the year is an opportunity to grieve your deep losses of the year. Many faith communities have held a service for this night to not only mark the solstice, but to honor the darkness that death and loss brings to a heart. It is called a Blue Christmas or Longest Night Service.

The concept is to bring our losses, wounds, grief, and disappointments for the year to a place and time where they can be honored outside of the “Happy Holidays!” that are expected. It is an ideal experience for bereaved persons because you can name the losses that your person’s death has brought to your daily living.

We at Journeys through Grief invite you to participate in this type of healing moment.

You might look to see what faith community around you offer one. It will be a service true to that faith expression so consider according to your beliefs.

You also might gather your family and others to come together for this and create your own community. Here is an outline for a simple ritual.

Once gathered, pause in silence for each person to suggest what has been lost. Nothing considered is outside the realm of inclusion. These losses may be spoken or written down.

Spend a bit of time in silence or play a song that is meaningful. Give yourself a few minutes to be with this moment. There may be smiles and laughter, joy, and gratitude as well as the expected sorrow and sadness. Again, there is nothing that is outside the realm of possibility or inclusion.

A way to close this is to either light a single candle for the person or have each person in attendance light a candle for them. As the candle is lit, each person can offer a word of thankfulness or gratitude or how the deceased’s legacy will be lived out. This brings a future tense to the gathering orienting everyone forward toward a new way of living.