Should Auld Acquaintance be forgot...?

The question mark is mine, not the immortal Robbie Burns', I think. IS it a statement, or a question? Well, I don't know what Scotland's greatest had in mind, but for me it's a bit of both.

As the timeless words of Auld Lang Syne ring out across millions of places over thousands of kilometres of land and sea today, I'll be taking a cup of kindness indeed- tonight at a party in Eastbourne. But as I sing, I'll also be thinking "Yes" and "no". Like life itself, ALS is a contradiction.

"Yes" the auld acquaintance with the horrors of 2005 which show man or nature at his worst should be forgotten, but the people it affects even today should not. "Yes", the acquaintance with the sadness and the sorrows and the things that have held us back, sometimes for months, sometimes for years, or even decades, should be consigned to the compactor of healed memories, like the dustmen and the recyclers doing their round today collecting all our Christmas detritus.

But then again, "No": the auld and indeed the new acquaintances who mean so much should be brought to mind frequently for their love, their support, their fun, their personalities- and their prayers. The lost loved ones of this last year should be ours, treasured in our memory, not just on New Year's Eve but through all of life.

For Auld Lang Syne- for Old Time's Sake- for the hopes and fears of all the years, not just the one now dying, let us give thanks to the "Potentate of Time", whose footprints span the gap not just between 2005 and 2006, but between man's time and God's eternity.

Here's to the time beyond time, coming some time soon. Thanks for persevering with my ramblings throughout 2005. If you want to let me know what you've thought of any of them, or your own views, please make use of the "comment" tab now, with thanks to all who have already. I hope you enjoy your New Year's, as they say in the States. And here's to your health, happiness and well being, this New Year and always.

Cheers, and I'll see you the other side of the international dateline in 2006!

God Bless

Chitty Chitty Blog Blog

I hope the lawyers of Ian Fleming's estate aren't working long hours over Christmas. If they are, then I'd better watch out as they might not like the title of this piece of writing and they could send some nasty men my way. Well, when you've got the creator of 007 James Bond at your disposal, even when you seem to be dead you can do some very frightening things!

Right now, most people in England are too busy watching their villains, heroes, champions and chucklers on the television- or reading about them in books- to go in search of trouble in the often horrid world outside. I bet you're doing the same! Apart from which, spies don't like freezing, they prefer to come in from the cold. Whoops, better watch it or I'll have another famous author after me who wrote spy stories. Sorry Mr Cornwell (and there's a small prize for any of you down by the sea if you can tell me that writer's pen name!).

Television at this time of year can be great fun to watch and very comforting, like the best stories which always have a happy ending. I had cause on Christmas Eve to experience a rather different Christmas Eve, with my brother and some friends, German-style. Over in Deutschland, like much of Europe, they don't have quite such a long wait to open their presents, and all the excitement of unwrapping and trying out the new toys come on that most beautiful and twinkling night of the year when the little star is the baby of Bethlehem, who was and is the best present of all.

German television at Christmas is full of lovely little programmes and beautiful music and images which are a feast for the eyes while you wait for the feast for your tummy, which is the traditional Christmas Eve meal of sausage salad.

Along with the stollen and the mince pies, this was our Christmas Eve memorable munch. Matthew and I really enjoyed spending Heiligernacht, the Holy Night, with our friends and the next day we had a great nosh too with our own full English Christmas Dinner- in an Italian restaurant! Mind you, we made sure we didn't eat too much food at once: that's not good for you, of course. If you have over-eaten this Christmas, dear reader, perhsps you'd do well to take the advice of Professor Stanley Unwin:

"If you've done an overstuffy in the tumloader, finisht the job with a ladleho of brandy butter, then go all the way to the toileybox."

Well, quite, very clear advice. Almost as good as his words of gobbledegook wisdom as Chancellor of a sort-of-German place in the wonderful film of Ian Fleming's only children's book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which made an appearance on ITV1 yesterday.

This has been a favourite family film of mine ever since I saw it as a lad of ten during the summer holidays with my brother and the three little boys and their Mum who were our neighbours over the road, the Povalls. Chitty has since gone on to be a very succesful stage show, of course, and -yes- the car really can "fly"!

There are some sad bits and some really joyful bits in CCBB. Lots of good dancing, some nice songs and of course loads of surprises. I still remember my sadness now though at all the little boys and girls who were locked up in the dark by the awful childcatcher, far away from the joys and toys of playing outside, despite the efforts of the toymaker to help them and keep them safe. The jealous and terrible baron and his wife did not like and would not permit children in their country of Vulgaria. When I saw this bit of the film, I looked over at my best friend of the time, and wondered what he was thinking about these sad happenings.

In films and in books, you will find things to make you laugh as well as make you cry. None of us like to cry, but it's a part of life we all experience from time to time. In the Christmas story in the gospels, it may seem out of place, but important to remember that bad king Herod got rid of all the tiniest children, under two,of Bethlehem(except Jesus, who escaped to Egypt with his parents, as scripture predicted). How awful that must have been for the mothers of that time, and indeed for older borthers and sisters. We remember them still today on what is known as Holy Innocents, the 28th December.

However, crying does not last forever and believe it or not for all its horrible happenings and the wicked things people still do to each other, for many of us our stories will have a "happy ending" The inspired writers of the greatest book of all tell of it, and it has been filmed with its many different "chapters" and stories so many times, because to many people like us it contains the most important, true happenings in history. Can you tell what it is yet (where's Rolf Harris? Probably busy painting the Queen!) It has sold more copies than anything else ever printed- more even than James Bond or, indeed, than The Railway Children. Now there's a story worth seeing and reading time and time again!

I would gladly have watched The Railway Children right through, if it wasn't on at the same time I was out for my Christmas lunch. It's wonderful, full of engines of all different colours, and steam and whistles, a friendly helpful stationmaster and a kindly old gentleman, and children doing all sorts of special things for other people or saving them from disaster. Meanwhile, their very caring mother writes stories, to earn some money while their father has been sent away to jail for something he was supposed to have done wrong. Whereas in fact, he was innocent of any crime.

Does it have a happy ending? Of course it does, though in fact very few people can't cry when they see it. When you hear eldest daughter Roberta cry through the mist of the train's steam.. Well, I don't want to spoil it for you if you have never seen the film, but have your tissues ready.

I've loved writing ever since I was a little boy. Indeed, I used to produce a small magazine which I'd sell to my schoolchums for three old pennies, called Hey Presto! Perhaps I ought to give that as a new title for this blog, seeing as I'm not the first to bag the title Anyway... But it's not the title that matters, it's what you write in the stories that you write that you inform, entertain, intrigue and please your readers. I hope you've enjoyed reading this little story about a little part of my life, and whether you're large or small yourself, why not get writing?

Whatever you write though, oh best beloved, remember that the greatest happy ending has yet to come, and that will be in real life for us all. It will be "Just So", to borrow the title of some wonderful little stories written by Rudyard Kipling for his children about how things came to be the way they are. The best selling book of all time still remains The Holy Bible, which tells the story of God's love for man and of his adventures with us, especially through his only son Jesus.

When we see Jesus, along with his father, face to face at the end of time, as the Bible tells us we surely will, then I happily expect we too will run to him and cry "Daddy, my Daddy"! Now there's the best ending of all for you to this anytime story.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

The weather outside is not so frightful in uptown Feltham, but the snow is so delightful! At last, only two days late, the snow is falling and the seasonal atmosphere is complete, particularly when accompanied by The Muppet Christmas Movie on TV.

It's strange how seduced we are by white precipitation from on high at this time of year. Of course, it brings out the child in all of us, and my thoughts turn immediately to the winter of 63, when I were nowt but a boy of 4, building my first snowman in the garden here with my little brother. Coal from a brick bunker for his eyes and a carrot for a nose- the snowman, that is, not brother Matthew. The best thing to do with carrots, as back then I certainly wouldn't have been eating them with the Christmas dinner. Indeed, Matthew and I often hatched elaborate plans to disguise our non-eating of them, mainly "plan b" I think.

Snow gives everything it kisses with its multi-faceted flakes a seasonal makeover. When I first saw it one winter day in the sixties, I exclaimed "Oh look, Jack Frost has been round and painted all the rooves with talcum powder!" It's like the seasonal sequins on a New Year's Eve ball gown, and nothing looks more wonderful when nature in its nakedness is clothed in white glory. Somehow when it snows, the cinderella of our lives becomes the wide-eyed, anything is possible dreams of our childhoods again.

But the problem with snow is it melts. Like our dreams...?

There the analogy should stop, for as the author of a Christian book once put it "Dead Dreams Can Live". This Christmas has been for me, contrary to my expectations, one of the happiest I can remember, certainly since childhood. And yet, in my imagination I expected anything but, it being the first one spent without our dear Mum with my brother and I. And Suddenly, there is inside me a new hope that my dreams can live, that they needn't become like the deceased Snowman in Raymond Briggs' perennially magical and yet poignant tale. I feel that I have crossed over, as it were, from a winter of discontent to a new season of opportunity, and the Holy Spirit, in his divine wisdom, is showing me things about myself and my potential I had always thought could only exist in dreams.

Time will of course tell. The Holy Spirit blows where He will, like the blizzards currently engulfing parts of the South East, causing me to think today of friends in Kent who may well be snowed in for a while. I know that they were looking forward to snow, and with a two-year old and five month old baby in toe, what better festive scene could there be to finish their Christmas.

However, the romantic notions of pretty scenes become rather more like nightmares when trying to drive on ungritted rural roads. But even the stranded driver, not knowing where to turn next, knows that the snow will eventually melt and he will find his way home. God does that in our lives too, and the more of him that falls on us from on high, the better. He did it for Moses and his people with manna: he still does it today where people will trust him to turn a weary planet to a world in white. Unlike U2's visions for New Year's Day though, when that happens, everything changes.

Just Another Day?

Christmas Day is, in reality stripped of that collection of emotion, history and sentiment which make it such an adored day on the calendar, a collection of just a few short hours which every year seem to pass by quicker. No sooner have you digested the best and biggest meal of the year, than it's time to get under the blankets to sleep it off neath the wrapping of sheet and duvet as we enter Boxing Day, the holiday after Christmas in many parts of the Christian world. But the birthday of no ordinary boy means that Christmastide proper, which runs for another eleven days yet, can be no ordinary feast, so we should rightly join the celebration and keep on hurrying down to Bethlehem.

The birthday "bit" is now over for another year- at least as far as the UK is concerned. On the other hand, if you're one of my American readers or maybe even watching the ocean swell break on the shores of the Pacific as you read this on Christmas night, you are fortunate indeed to be enjoying the special feel of that evening, and pondering still perhaps like the shepherds and the wise men the mystery of it all.

Not in that poor lonely stable,
With the Oxen standing by
We shall see him,
but in Heaven
Sat at God's right hand on high
When like stars his children crowned
All in white, shall wait around

I can still hear the descant notes struggling now as if to pass through the celestial ceiling into eternity's portal, just 36 hours ago now but it could have been an eternity away. The strange way in which all time seems to roll into one at this time of the year, like wool used to knit a Christmas jumper, is part of the special magic of the season for me. Yet Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander never intended Once in Royal David's City to be a hymn just for singing at Christmas actually. Its underlying message is timeless and relevant to every day of every life as it has been for two millennia. Though you'll rarely hear it done so in church, it could actually be sung on any day of the year, and that is part of its brilliance- and the brilliance of the Christmas story.

For we're dealing with events which weave together the past, present and future of all humanity- whatever our race, colour or creed. I'm writing this in the wee small hours of a dark December day in Southern England, the world around me still but for the ticking of a Christmas present clock from many years ago and the clicking of my own chubby fingers on the keyboard. Yet somewhere on another shore, in another country even beyond the reach of Google Earth, souls who once lived and breathed as I do are celebrating for us, with us, day after day, until He comes again, making music which will still be sounding long after the last organ stop is closed on the the final chord of Christmas 2005. For they lived and died for and with their faith, just as the first Christian martyr St Stephen did back in the first century. His feast is the one we celebrate now, feeding on leftover turkey and trying, maybe, to keep the peace of Christmas Day going on in our domestic life for just another few hours before the holy atmosphere has quite dissipated. And meanwhile, some of us might actually get round to giving the little boxes of love we could not find the time or energy to open and wrap on Christmas Day!

Stephen had seen Jesus, not in Bethlehem, nor in Nazareth, but as a grown thirty-something man doing the work he was born to do.He had seen, worshipped and believed in Jesus and accepted him as his Messiah. Tragically for Stephen's earthly life, others did not share his view, and indeed mercilessly pursued him with sticks if not stones which did break bones. The names that people call us, and the impressions we so often form, do hurt us actually. Put your hope in the God of the manger and the God of the cross, however, and there is a life waiting even beyond death- which ought to cause us all to cry "Alleluia" as loudly as the master Handel did with his own timeless musical celebration of The Messiah.

I guess looked at with the eyes of faith and a long view like a GPS gazing on earth, Christmas might also be called Crossmas. Like all of us, actually, Jesus was destined to give up his last one day all too soon- but he gave his all so that there might be life for all, in all its fulness, now and forevermore, i.e. both sides of death.

This Boxing Day will be the proper remembrance in many churches and on other shores from Africa to the islands of Asia of the death which came suddenly, unexpectedly and seemingly without merchy to numbers still impossible to count accurately, twelve months ago. The Indian ocean tsunami was a reminder of what a precious gift life is, yet wrapped in only flesh and bones which need to be protected and safe from harm.

Our Boxing Day response in 2005 might seem all too small, but it can still be given with love, whether of wallet or words. Prayer can and still does bring a relief which no human agency alone can handle, vital though this is. Stephen knew this, as he saw his wonderful vision of Jesus, sat at God's right hand on high, before his life was taken by those who knew not what they were doing, as it so often has been through the centuries in war and tragedy.

Yet beneath the horrors which the workaday world so quickly brings back to our consciousness after the dreamy romantic visions and imagery of Christmastide are gone for another year, lie the unexpected happenings, the miraculous healings, changes of heart, turn in world events and ordinary human stories, that our world still brings. It brings the heart-rending and yet heart-challenging words of forgiveness from grieving mother Gee Walker, following the conviction of her son's racist killers a few weeks before Christmas. Or the astounding grace with which the parents of devout Catholic Abigail Witchell showed to her presumed attacker who later took his own life. Several thousand more such stories happen everyday, unheralded by trumpets, unreported in the media. But they are the reason why I, and even a devout Jew called Saul, later come back to the boy born in a barn, and the man muredered on a mount, day after day. Saul's story may be for another day, but for the moment, let's just remember, indeed, that God is for life, not just for Christmas.

Last Christmas

The time has come, the Savage said, to talk of many things.
Of Christmas Trees, and times to please, of cracker jokes and kings

Christmas Eve 2005: just another number at the end of the year's date, or a reminder of the secular bard's amazed exclamation: "What a piece of work is a man!"? I'll opt for the latter. Christmas brings Christians, at least, to gaze in awe and wonder, with the mind's eye and a heart filled with love, at the piece of work which gave life to all man, lying helpless on a bed of straw.

But what of the rest? What does this ancient,beautiful,enchanting festival say about the great mass of humanity that will celebrate this next couple of days largely oblivious of events that happened twenty centuries ago, in a tiny village hitherto unknown to the rest of the world.

Perhaps, just for a moment they might pause to remember not a sentimental song which gave an answer to the office Christmas quiz, alongside all the other music of heaven which makes this season an aural treat. Maybe they might stop stuffing their face with mince pies and all the other Turkish Delights of this annual visit to epicurean paradise. They might even be prepared to give Great Aunt Agatha a peck on the cheek.

Maybe, with a little help from the media, they will remember what a fragile, tender, treasured thing is life itself. Eyes might turn from a stable in Bethlehem to a wrecked home on the shores of another place beginning with B, Banda Aceh. The "port" or "haven" where celebration was shattered with the almighty wham of a wave 363 days ago and millions of lives were shattered in a "natural" event these precious souls cannot and the world must not forget.

When the "Boxing Day Tsunami" first struck the world's airwaves, few paid much attention to its impact on a one-third world still poping the Rennies from too much rich food the day before. In our sleepy ignorance, those of us inhabiting comfortable brick-built semis were relaxing with little care for the devastation wrought on communities of men and women, and particularly children, just like ourselves. Familes that lived and loved, needed care and clothing for their bodies, occupation for their hands and emotions and thoughts for their minds.

All that was to vanish in an instant. Lives were shattered by the occurrence of events deep beneath the sight of man on this revolving glitterball we call our home. Suddenly, the dancing had to stop and humanity had to remember its own. Wallets were emptied and the richer nations of the world gave a record amount for the relief of the suffering of those caught up in the terrible suffering unfolding before our eyes. And as the world changed, in remembrance there was silence.

What connects these terrible happenings in Asia with the partying and the packaging, the rushing and the ringing, twelve months on? What brings sorry souls like you and me to our knees in worship and adoration of a tiny bundle of flesh and bones, yet with a street value of about 50 pence if seen merely as a chance collection of atoms and molecules of about as many ingredients as make up the average Christmas pudding.

It brings us back to a boy, named Emmanuel or "Jesus". It reminds us that every mistake made by man hides an opportunity, like the deceptive boxes we make up to conceal the tiny gift so carefully chosen for our loved one. It reminds us that tragedy, sorrow and grief are not the natural state of man but his fallen one. It shows us why the mixed emotions, the family rows and the misunderstood intentions even present in penguins, at least of the Pingu variety, on Christmas Eve can still bring tears to the eyes as they do to mine as I write this.

Christmas is for precious treasures too important to be hidden wrapped beneath a shimmering tree. It's for children, yes, and their wide-eyed expectation is one of the joys of this amazing time I'm looking forward to seeing in two young friends of mine later today. In the meantime there's work to be done: decorations so lately retrieved from the loft to adorn the living room, food to fill the fridge and freezer and those forgotten greetings cards to be passed on to those fondly remembered close at hand as the big day dawns closer by the minute.

Christmas is a reminder, last Christmas, and every Christmas until he comes again that God- Father, Son and Holy Spirit- is at work in our world, far busier than any one of us will be today, and far more hopeful, joyful and loving of those he made his own, by his own. Murderous hands may threaten the peace of the world, but a tiny heartbeat crowns the Prince of Peace this December night as it did when princes and potentates, shepherds and angels worshipped and adored him beyond the mists of time.

If the Victorians created our modern British celebration of Christmas, then it was an inspired Sunday school teacher of that era who, through the many experiences of adversity each year brings, was able to remind us in a hymn what it is really all about and why we NEED Christmas as much in AD 2005 as we did in AD 0. Indeed, we need it's message, coupled with its "adult" companion Easter, every day of our lives.
Let the power of a single treble voice, sounding like the needful cry of a tiny infant mentioned by the Archbishop of Westminster in his Christmas Eve Thought for the Day, fill your heart with joy this Christmas. Listen to the last verse sung by the choir triumphant, in perfect harmony,from King's college today or on the BBC website at any time this week and remember why we celebrate. Or take these words and make them your Christmas Eve aide memoire of why we do so much for just 24 hours or so of each year.

For he is our childhood's pattern,
day by day like us he grew;
he was little, weak and helpless,
tears and smiles like us he knew.
and he feeleth for our sadness,
and he shareth in our gladness.

I wish you a very Happy Christmas, and may God Bless you and those you love, now and always

Some Enchanted Evening

...you may see a stranger. Well yes, I did actually, at the office Christmas party tonight. Several strangers, all new faces to me, but familiar to others as the spouses of my colleagues, or the various supporters and associates of my charity employer. Nice to meet them all, and to chat to a few of them.

Office Christmas parties can be strange affairs, and sometimes rather tense too. You want to be open, friendly, let your hair down a bit-but there's always that danger that you drop your guard or blot your copybook in a moment of carelessness. I'm pleased to say though that, as far as I know, I did none of these things tonight, but instead had an extremely pleasant evening- much to my surprise and delight. I even earned three stars as one of the Rookies of the Year from the big chief!
Never judge a book by its cover, or an employer by its Christmas party. Beforehand, I felt a little uncertain of what to expect of my first Christmas do with my current paymasters, held as it was in our HQ in London's Mayfair- but I needn't have worried. I have to say in all honesty, that this was the best office do I had ever been to, and probably the most historic setting too! Converting the main meeting space of our building in the West End into an intimate dining setting for 34 people, different personalities but all souls (if you think this identifies the building-close, but not quite!) worked amazingly well. It was a reminder that early church buildings were indeed multi-functional spaces intended to be places of welcome and activity, as well as worship.

It was a joy to spend a December evening over turkey and talk, quizzing and fizzing-though I didn't get to grab a glass of the large bottle of champagne which had been popped especially for the occasion.

Good company and conversation are of course what make occasions like this special, though a tasty drop of the fruit of the vine is a big help too. I'm writing this perhaps still slightly enjoying the effect of about 6 glasses tonight, and glad that the Bible is happy to endorse moderate drinking- though how tragic that the consequences of excess will once again be felt by bereaved families somewhere or other this Christmas. the blameless casualties of drink-drivers. I was very grateful for public transport tonight, but the more so for Shanks' Pony, which my brother and I will be able to use on Christmas Day after our glad imbibing to celebrate the Saviour's Day at a 3 star hotel, ten minutes from home!

But there's work to be done before then, so I must to my bed, but wishing you an enjoyable time if you're about to start your workplace festivities. Take it easy, though!

Don't Hurry, Be Happy!

Now, who was it who had that minor hit with the song on which my post's title today is based? Whoever it was, the little song he wrote (which I'm singing "note by note" in my head, of course, as I write!) was a cheerful ditty in an age which seems to have lost the vital art of being happy.

It may seem that we've every reason to be unhappy with the cares of the modern world: that was some of the thinking in my meditation on Sunday. There's a lot, on the surface, to be careworn about. And of course, it's right and proper at this time of the year particularly, to be charitable in both word and deed. But that shouldn't stop us BEING happy - it's more than a feeling, it's an attitude.

The BBC have just finished an interesting, if occasionally irritating, series which, rather than place a bunch of questionable celebrities in an actual jungle took fifty "real" people from a town which from many perspectives has often been seen as one of the worst concrete jungles in Britain, Slough. Pronounce it the American way, as in the slough of despond, and you would be in the good company of Betjeman and Brent- David of that fictional ilk from The Office (set in the Berkshire town) whose attempts at worktime bonhommie showed him for the plonker he was and in so doing made a comic creation sure to make anyone happy who's ever endured the 9 to 5 with the laughter of recognition.

Finding happiness at work today though is a hard task for many, and in many other aspects of life people seem less happy than they once were. The proviso of Making Slough Happy was to take a group of fifty volunteers and take them through a programme of various approaches to do just that with this multi-cultural melange of a community of commuters and retirees, students and workers on the massive Slough Trading Estate. The show's assortment of various social scientist and happiness specialists had a brave task on their hands to cheer the community and at the same time not send the viewers off to sleep like one of the town's most famous products, Horlicks.

Happily, and surprisingly, they did it! One of the not so surprising revelations of the show, is how therapeutic singing can be. I've inherited my dear Mum's love of a good warble, and the numerous opportunities for communal carol singing in the next three weeks are surely one of the happiest harmonies of the festive season. But why does nobody whistle these days? The show didn't bring this out, but it's an interesting example of another lost art. Disney's heirs may be singing all the way to the bank today as the world premiere of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe hits the movie screens, but another snow white heroine of decades before, popular as ever, surely had the right idea when she enjoined her workers of reduced stature to Whistle While You Work.

At which point, I guess I ought to put my tongue to my teeth and set the kettle on its stand for another day at my particular office- a long one today with an evening lecture to be served tonight. But even kettles no longer whistle! Nevertheless, the words of a far greater teacher than any psycho-babblers and academics who attempt to tell us what ought to be obvious are music to my ears. Jesus Christ knew what it was to be happy even in a life which was to end so tragically- because he knew the Lord who made us all to enjoy him forever and thus, "be happy". Except he used another word for it, and his suggestions seemed more unlikely than anything Making Slough Happy could come up with, but remain as true as ever. You'll find his suggestions for happiness in chapter 6 of Matthew's gospel: they're properly known as the Beatitudes or, if you will the Be- Attitudes. But most people call it the sermon on the mount.

In knowing him is true contentment, and how to be happy!

A December Meditation

On this second Sunday in Advent, here's the meditation I intend to use at the office prayer meeting tomorrow:

December again, all reddy
Oh yes it is, the year’s behind
And winter brings a pantomime
To the season of myths and mellow tackiness.
Red indeed is colour of the month
-from Aids Day ribbon to party bow, the year ends up
in heaving pillar box and cheery cup
While one ruddy fellow brings festive goodies
one silent night, to tots with teddies.

So why, so often, do I feel blue
Like Oxford Street lights, while waiting for you?
Is it because, I ask myself,
The message is lost
In the indulgence and wealth
Or is it because, while wishing good cheer
Nothing changes, from year to year.
As African children are forced to fight
For some twisted cause their elders think right

And workaday journeys end up in death
For innocent souls in their carriages beneath
And family upon family, every day, faces grief

So can we have Christmas, with minds so often green,
While news cameras show, an ever more evil scene
Can we believe, like kids seeking Santa
That you’re the real thing- not Coke, nor Fanta

Oh yes we can, we know, it’s true
That still there is hope- but only through you.
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord” said John
announcing your Advent, the boy-king now grown
Brings life in its fullness to those who would hear
A gospel of love- not message of fear

We celebrate Christmas, and life lived more fully
Since you o’erpowered Satan, the beast and the bully
For Christmas is red, as remembrance’s poppy
Since life comes from blood, from your crucified body.

A helpless baby came into our world
And Heaven’s banner for all unfurled
Promising new life through a name we can trust
Though ashes breed ashes, and dust turns to dust
So your birth is the reason, your rising our dawn
For white-lit ovation, of Jesus that morn
The Word was made flesh, beheld for a time
That we might find reason, find purpose, find rhyme
This Advent, Lord Jesus, please set us apart
To find in your coming, true place in our hearts.

Amen

December All reddy

The last month of the year with us, and Advent Calendars- if you can find them still called that rather than the hideous secular attempt at being politically correct with "Countdown Calendars"- would have been eagerly opened in many homes this morning by the young and not so young.

It's funny, over the years I must have collected umpteen Advent Calendars myself with the best of intentions, which usually ended up being entwined in a mad rush of paper door opening a few days before the celebration, rather than each morning as should be the case. This only demonstrates what a horrendously disorganised soul I am much of the time, or rather because of time-there's rarely enough of it to fit in all the things I'd like to do, let alone need to do! If I have a prayer for one weakness in my make-up I'd like to overcome, it's surely this, coupled with my untidiness I guess.

However, I do know the proper time and place for prayer and the preparations for Christmas in just 25 days time. I've come down from town, just for the night, once again, principally to help support the Prayer and Praise evening at the church I attended here while my main home was in Eastbourne. It was a good time of prayer, but that shouldn't be the end of it, and now I guess I really ought to take a look at my advent devotional before I hit the sack ready for an early start tomorrow.

My employer has a half-day of prayer once a quarter, which in my short time with the organisation I've found a very pleasing and fulfilling experience. This is in addition to the daily ten minutes of prayer which I'm always rather sad to miss if transport delays mean I'm not in the office before 9. It's a nice touch which I wish a few more Christian organisations could find time for in their working day. The peace and setting of a historic building helps, of course, but it's the presence of the one this season really prepares us for that gives these precious interludes in the day such meaning.

Having said that, I feel a bit daunted about being asked to write and read a meditation at our next half day on Monday. With no particular theme prescribed, I nevertheless feel that Advent is where my heart is naturally at spiritually at present and so I must get my thinking cap on for what to write. Meanwhile, there's a clue to one of the ideas I've had in the title of this posting.

Link from this page today takes you to the newly-launched blog of Brian Draper who I've featured on this blogspot before. Brian's not just a gifted writer but knows a good photograph when he sees one too. Check out his latest offerings by clicking on "December All Reddy" (my title for this, not his!) above, and bookmark it now!

But, the Magic Roundabout of time and Eastbourne tide wait for no man. It's time for me to go to sleep to the accompaniment of the wind and the not so far off waves outside my maritime bolthole. Time for bed, said Zebedee.