Dear fellow pilgrim,

“No one wants to play Joseph,” observed a friend in the monastery, who was preparing the Christmas pageant with kids from the neighborhood. “Joseph is always hired last!”

Have you ever wondered why this is? Why do we know so little about Joseph? And why do we care so little also?

So on this third day of Christmas I want to invite you to ponder with me the forgotten figure of the nativity scene. The man in the background who would probably be called a snowflake in today’s terms. The one who did not leave his young fiancé when she came home pregnant from a journey. The one who took her in and cared for her son as his own. The one who is attuned to his dreams and who follows that voice from within.

Clearly Joseph seems to be an image of a man not compatible with centuries of mansplaining. He is the antidote to toxic masculinity which has surrounded us for too long. And thus it makes sense that he isn’t the favorite character of the Christmas story. He has nothing to say! He just stands in the background! The most important things seem to happen in his dreams. How do you play that at the Christmas pageant?

Friends, I admit, I have not cared much about Joseph either. And so, now, just starting to ponder him, looking at him truly and truthfully, a warm emotion washes over me.

Don’t we all long for a father figure like Joseph? Some one who cares without overstepping? A man soft enough to not only tune into his dream life but to take it serious enough to follow its voice? And a man strong and willing enough to protect his young family - from the judgement of society and from the mighty warriors on the streets?

When I look at the icons of Joseph available with a simple google search I see the face of a caring and gentle man. Shall we look at him together?

Joseph, the gentle mind

The depth psychologist and pastor’s son CG Jung invites us into that gentle gaze of Joseph. As he interprets the nativity scene in archetypal terms he sees Joseph as the mindful, who stands for the masculine part of our soul life. His task is to support Mary, the soulful, on her way, not only to stand by her but to father and care for the new life Mary is carrying under her heart. And so, if we invite Joseph on our inner stage, he symbolizes the ability we each have to structure, to foster and facilitate, to believe, and to support what ever wisdom is trying to birth in us.

This is a very different image of the mind than our enlightened age offers. Our understanding of mind has often been reduced to thinking and the thinking then reduced to rationality or some sort of intellectual stamp collecting. A thinking that builds ivory towers but does not build a family!

When I introduce myself as a philosopher people do not expect someone who teaches retreats! In fact, they expect someone who is at home in books and not in life. So I took refuge in Hildegard who claimed that the philosopher must be a gardener, or Kierkegaard, the Danish Socrates, who sees the philosopher as a midwife. These images call for integration, not separation. For a rationality that is not just reason, but instead is grounded in care and compassion. They call for Joseph, dear friends, actually they call for the whole nativity scene!

Because what we call “mindfullness” goes much deeper than our academic understanding of mind allows. It needs the heart and soul to really deepen our self into gentler ways. It needs the whole nativity: Joseph, the mindful, Mary the soulful, both caring for the Divine child! Thus, together, Mary and Joseph stand in for the feminine and masculine part of our soul; anima and animus. Thinking about Mary and Joseph in us also reveals what is hurt or less developed in our own life. Some might have lacked motherly care, some might have longed all life long for more fatherly support. Some might have difficulty to just stand such a tender father image.

But here is the invitation: despite the odds, despite the lack or the disappointment we might have experienced in our own life, we can find Joseph anew in us, we carry his image in us, even if it might be buried by less gentle or even outright evil images.

Joseph, the “dreamer”

Thus I was not surprised to learn that Pope Francis has chosen Joseph as his Saint. He even made 2020, the year after the start of the pandemic, the year of Joseph. “I very much love the holy Joseph,” he said in a speech, “because he is both a strong and a still man.” And then he tells his audience about the statue of the sleeping Joseph he has on his table. Joseph cares about us “while he sleeps. … And thus when I have a problem I write it on a little paper and put it under Joseph so he will dream of it…”

Joseph, who cares for our troubles in his sleep. What an antidote to the one we call a “dreamer.” Here is that third figure of the nativity without whom the nativity would not be whole. And he follows and fosters his dreams. He is the dreamer the world needs. Just like the man who gave that famous speech “I have a dream…”

Dreaming about a more humane future can be powerful. And tending to our dreams can be the path to the Divine child.

Practice

So on this Christmas Day, choose one of the three images of Joseph here that appeals to your heart. My favorite is the first, contemporary one, drawn recently for a German news magazine. But each has a face and posture you could read in the manner of Lectio Divina. Look carefully at the posture, the hands, the eyes. What do they tell you about this Joseph? What does your reading of Joseph tell you about yourself, or about your relation to your cares and dreams? What is stirring up in your heart just looking? Can you follow it for a bit?

And how might you respond, this day, to what you have seen and heard? Or what might you want to say to this Joseph?

And as always, we end with this blessing:

May Christmas find you where you are…

This is the third post in our 12 Days of Christmas 2022 series. You can still enroll to receive our daily contemplation in your inbox.