Shakers and Christmas

“Man is a harp with a thousand strings. Touch the spiritual cord of his heart, and lo, with what inspiration he sings!” (Shaker saying)

The Shakers didn’t place the same emphasis on special holiday as some of their neighbors did. The journal keepers sometimes didn’t mention Christmas at all and when they did, it was generally very brief. The South Union journal entry for 1811 reads: “Christmas. Believers held meeting. Kept day in songs and dances. Pretty lively.” In 1869 the Pleasant Hill society “kept Christmas as the Sabbath. Trained in stepping and shuffling after supper.” The ministry must have thought a day without the normal work duties was a good day for practice.

But while it wasn’t always mentioned in the journals, the Shakers customarily held one general worship meeting and one union meeting on Christmas. (The union meetings were when several brethren and several sisters sat in chairs across from one another and talked in a social way.) Their rules for Christmas was “to remember the poor and to do no more work except what was allowed on the Sabbath.” At times though, they did consider the need to break that work rule. Once when they were getting ready for the Christmas service, a steamboat came to their landing for the first time that winter. The meeting was canceled right away as the brethren started hauling their frieght down to the boat to ship. Another time, the brothers went out after dinner to take ice out of one of their ponds to have ready to haul the next morning.

The Shakers believed in putting their hands to work and giving their hearts to God.

The most significant day on the Shaker calendar was their Sacrifice Day or Day of Atonement. It was a day of prayer, contemplation, and reconciliation. The millenial laws stated that on Sacrifice Day “all Believers should make perfect reconciliation one with another, and leave all grudges, hard feelings, and disaffection toward one another, externally behind on this day.” The millenial laws went on to say “nothing which is this day settled – may hereafter be brought forward against another.” This day was usually around Christmas but wasn’t necessarily on Christmas Day. Leaders from the eastern societies would visit to help hear confessions of wrongs and make sure the day went well.

With the members of the Shaker society living in close quarters and working with one another all through the year, this was an important rule and the way they were able to keep peace among the Shaker brothers and sisters. You can be sure that there were some Shakers who were hard to get along with, some who thought others didn’t do their full share of work, some they simply struggled to like.

In my stories I have a Sister Edna who was always trying to catch my characters in some wrongdoing. She especially gave Sister Sophrena trouble in my book Christmas at Harmony Hill. So at Christmas when they had Day of Atonement or Sacrifice Day, I had Sister Sophrena having to ask forgiveness from Sister Edna for any disagreements they had had during the year. Naturally, I didn’t make Sister Edna be truly forgiving or see her own faults or need to ask forgiveness. You have to have someone who gives trouble. I brought Sister Edna back for my story, The Innocent, where she was every bit as hard to live with and gave Carlyn trouble, but eventually had a change of heart.

I shared this bit of a scene from Christmas at Harmony Hill on Facebook today, but I’m sharing it here too in case you missed it. It has Sister Sophrena explaining the meaning of Sacrifice Day to her niece, Heather, who has been given shelter by the Shakers even though she does not plan to walk the Shaker way.

Heather held her hands out toward the flames. “Why do they call it Sacrifice Day?”

Sophrena looked up from sweeping the ashes back into the fireplace. “It is a day of prayer when hearts must be searched and sacrifices of self made.”

“I thought you told me it was a day to forgive. To make amends.” She sat down in the chair by the fireplace.

“Think, Sister Heather, of how it is the same. Forgiveness requires a sacrifice of pride. A humbling of the spirit. An increase of selfless love. A time when you allow others’ feelings to be more important than your own.”

Christmas at Harmony Hill had a faith thread of forgiveness throughout the story which made it a perfect time for the Shakers’ Sacrifice Day to show up in my story.

Do you agree that forgiveness sometimes requires a sacrifice of pride for the one giving forgiveness as well as the one asking forgiveness?