Nine Ladies Dancing

The Ninth Month of Christmas

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

— Galatians 5:22–23

You have turned my wailing into dancing.

— Psalm 30

September is the ninth month.

Which means, in our year-long journey through the Twelve Days of Christmas, we have arrived at the Ninth Month of Christmas.

Nine Ladies Dancing.

The Ninth Day of Christmas is January 2. By then Christmas Day has passed. New Year's Eve has passed. New Year's Day has passed. Ordinary life is beginning to reassert itself. People return to work. Schools reopen. Routines resume. The celebration begins giving way to the everyday.

And perhaps that makes January 2 one of the most important days for anyone who hopes to keep Christmas well throughout the year.

It's easy to keep Christmas on Christmas.

What happens when we go back out the door?

A popular Christian interpretation of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” associates the Nine Ladies Dancing with the ninefold fruit of the Spirit in Galatians:

Love.
Joy.
Peace.
Patience.
Kindness.
Goodness.
Faithfulness.
Gentleness.
Self-control.

The association is a later devotional tradition rather than a demonstrable secret meaning built into the original carol. But as a devotional image, I love it.

Especially this year.

Because eerily, we've been studying the Ninth Day without knowing we were studying the Ninth Day.

We've reflected on love that must be genuine. We've discovered joy that can accompany us even to our beds. We've spent considerable time with shalom—the active work of peace. We've considered the “utmost patience” required in teaching. We've talked about treating neighbors and even opponents with kindness, and about pursuing what is good rather than merely what seems reasonable to us. We've considered faithfulness when belief itself becomes an object of ridicule, gentleness as an alternative to reproach, and self-control when disagreement tempts us toward retaliation.

We didn't plan that list.

Yet here it is.

Nine fruits.

Nine ladies.

And they're dancing.

Psalm 30 gives us that wonderful image: “You have turned my wailing into dancing.”

The fruit of the Spirit isn't intended to remain a list of nine religious vocabulary words. It moves. It becomes visible. Love loves somebody. Kindness does something kind. Patience waits. Faithfulness stays. Gentleness changes the way we speak. Self-control stops us from doing something we will regret. Peace brings people together.

The fruit goes somewhere.

At 2|42 Community Church, the service regularly concludes with a wonderfully simple instruction:

“Now go be the Church!”

The Rev. Dr. Lou Nyiri, Senior Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Michigan, makes the same point at the conclusion of worship. We love being here, he tells the congregation. We'd stay here all week if we could. But we can't. We have to go back out—to our homes, jobs and schools—and do the work of the Church.

There it is.

That's January 2.

Christmas gives us the gift. Then we have to take it outside.

The decorations eventually come down. The music stops playing. The special services end. We return to our jobs and schools, our families and neighbors, our errands and responsibilities—and to the people who occasionally test every ounce of our patience.

But the Nine Ladies are still dancing.

That's what this whole Ninth Month exercise asks of us here on September 6.

Did Christmas survive Christmas?

Did its love make it to September?

Its joy?

Its peace?

Its patience and kindness?

Its goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?

If so, perhaps we're beginning to understand what it means to keep Christmas throughout the year.

So go ahead.

Return to ordinary life.

Go home. Go to work. Go to school.

Go be the Church.

And don't stop dancing.

Reflectionary is an ongoing conversation with Scripture. If these reflections are meaningful to you, please subscribe and come back often. And by all means, join the conversation—your questions, disagreements, insights and reflections are always welcome.