This is from a column I wrote originally for the Northfield News:

After any big holiday or holy day, there is always a kind of lull in the activity of congregations. Some of that is simple fatigue, I think – people are worn out from the preparations and celebrations that go with these special days. But I think we are more than just weary after holidays; I think we need some time to absorb the deeper spiritual messages that are part of all religious observances.

The reason that holy days are holy is that they remind us, in some important way, of the basic tenets of our faith. Holy days are not so much lessons about theology or doctrine as they are re-enactments of the stories that embody our beliefs about God (theology) and about God’s will for our lives (doctrine).

The poet Muriel Rukeyser put is this way: “The universe is made of stories, / not of atoms.” (from The Speed of Darkness, 1968). Every time we celebrate a religious holiday, we retell the story that goes with it. We may sing the story in hymns or anthems; we may recite it in litanies or liturgies. We bring forward works of art that illustrate it. In short, we use all of our imaginative facilities to invite the truth of that story into our time and our consciousness.

I once read that our muscles get stronger as we recover from exercise, rather than while we are actually exercising. I think the same thing is true of our spiritual selves: we grow stronger – and our faith becomes deeper – as we “recover” from our religious celebrations. It is only after the flowers have faded, the dishes are washed, and the religious items have been put away that we have time to reflect and be renewed by what has just happened. Perhaps our post-holiday tiredness is just as sacred as the holidays themselves.