I have a problem with Christmas Carols, I don't know about anyone else but I struggle with their messages. Yes there are some good ones, but very often the language defeats me; nobody speaks like that today!
Back to those messages; I refuse to use Away in a Manger- I don't see the stable or cave or whatever it was as a warm cosy place with Jesus neatly wrapped in clean white swaddling bands. I also don't believe that as a newborn Jesus did not cry; nor do I think that the underlying message of that ( crying is bad) is helpful in any way!
Next for the chop- Once in Royal David's city- really "Christian children all must be mild obedient good as he! " Yuck sentimental manipulative Victorian moralising!
The there are the carols that paint lovely snowy scenes for us and help to add to the myth that Christmas is all about snow and Santa!
So I find that I struggle- my Carol Services have a limited selection that I am happy to use, and I am not happy to allow old favourites to be sung when those old favourites cut across the message of the gospel!
OK; rant over, back to planning!
Health warning; there may be more rants because I find the whole mix of story, myth and fairy tale difficult difficult to unravel! So I'll leave you with this by Jude Simpson :
This picture by Dave Perry inspired the poem above, he really caught my imagination by describing the crowd drawn by this performer and description of the way she moved!
It is my turn to set the Friday Five for Revgals,and in a more upbeat mood than of late I have been pondering the need for the place of thankfulness in our lives, and in my life in-particular, when things seem black it is easy to forget the rays of sunshine we are offered, so here is the Friday Five I set:
Following on from Thanksgiving, and picking up the "Black Friday" theme of boycotting the Christmas rush for bargains I thought it would be good to set a simple Friday Five yet one to get you thinking. I am sure that you'll agree that some of the best gifts we receive do not come in fancy wrapping paper but might be the gift of an unexpected afternoon with a friend or coming across a long forgotten photograph, or- well the list is endless...
So take a bit of time to think back over the last year and ponder the gifts it has offered to you, then list five of those gifts, in no particular order- there is only one rule- all of these gifts must have been free, neither you nor anyone else should have spent money on them!
1. Well in no attempt to be cheesy or even profound I have to say that the gift of prayer is amazing, that said there are times I struggle with it, times I don't know what to do with it, and times that it is an absolute joy and delight. Sometimes it is accompanied by praise and thanksgiving, and sometimes with tears and lament. It can be loud, it can be silent, sometimes I have no words at all, and even in the dark times when I feel that God is far away and unapproachable it encourages me to hang on in, to press on and it never lets me go!
I can really relate to what John Pritchard says in his book God Lost and Found;
"prayer is harder to stop than belief- and my encouragement would be not to try. Praying into the darkness might seem futile at one level, but it keeps open the possibility that normal service will be resumed."
So I am thankful for prayer, and still mystified by it! +
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2. The gift of the seasons, the changing moods and times of the year that remind me that life has a cycle, and that change is possible, I realise that I am fortunate to live in a place where those seasons are obvious, more and more I have come to appreciate winter with it's promise of spring!
3. The beach and sunsets, this picture was taken on a perfect summer evening when Tim and I wandered down to the beach from our holiday cottage in Norfolk taking a BBQ with us- the sun, waves and sand made the setting perfect!
4. Family! Sometimes we drive each other mad, sometimes we get cross with one another, but family is special in so many ways; these pictures were taken at my daughter Joanne's wedding last month, it was a wonderful day, and a reminder how special family is!
proud dad walking his daughter into church
Chris, Jon (Jo's twin), Jo and Dave, Emma and Paul- siblings and new husband/ brother-in-law
Proud mum and Dad!
5. Music- music of all kinds, it has the power to reach what nothing else can for me whether it be classical, jazz, pop, worship music again of all kinds. Yesterday this had me in tears and filled with joy at the same time!
Through this poem I return to what is a familiar theme for me, and that is that in order to be effective ministers (small m intended- all of us!) of Christ we must see and know and accept the depths of love and compassion that he has for us. A conversation I had yesterday revealed to me that I have a tendency to hold that love at a distance through the simple use of the wors "we"; I use we in various contexts, though testimony I become the we of a couple or of family, when I am talking of my work I become the we of the church. In doing this I hide me, I am part of the crowd, no matter how big that crowd is!
My first draft of the poem above reflected this tendency and I had used the words you and we, reflecting upon this I have gone back and made it very personal, and in doing so it has challenged me to accept, receive, and know the love of Christ in order that I can be set free afresh. I do know this stuff, I preach it, but practicing it can be a real challenge every day! But the bottom line is I need a personal relationship with the God who loves me if I am to share the love he has for all....
God is love. When I live in love I live in God, and God in me. This is how love is made complete in me so that I will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world I am like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Anyone who follows my blog through either facebook or twitter will have noticed a rapid succession of posts appearing this morning, each one containing prayer and fog in the title. These three were the result at my grappling with the current place in my life where the answers I am looking for are not there; that is not to say that God is not doing what I want, but to acknowledge that I am forced into a time of waiting, a time when I do not know and cannot see what is coming, and the only recourse I have is to wait.
This place is uncomfortable and challenging, it is requiring me to trust, to accept that I can do nothing and to wait. Religious platitudes do not help, and frankly if you offer me one I hope you can run fast (well faster than me which won't be a problem for most folk!). The fog this morning seemed to me to be a perfect picture of life at the moment, it required me to slow down, to be vigilant, and to become more aware of my surroundings. I was pondering this when I read Isaiah 64: 1-9, where that impassioned plea; "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down" gave rise to my second prayer.
I read the Isaiah passage as part of my preparation for preaching this Sunday which is the first Sunday in Advent. The passage itself is part of a larger communal psalm of lament, it is spoken by the post-exilic community of Jerusalem, who are pondering God's response to human sin. Over at Working Preacher Elna.K. Slovang says this:
"...the lamenters do what they said no one does: call upon God's name and attempt to take hold of God. They appeal to "our Father" and "our potter." They confess that they are all filthy and faded (verse 6) andthey claim that they are all offspring and product of God's creative activity (verse 8). On the basis of this latter connection, the lamenters make one more request: that God's anger and memory of their guilt not last forever (verse 9).
Laments are not formal arguments. They can employ faulty reasoning and they are one-sided. The lamenters in Isaiah 64 never make the clear and contrite admission of culpability that they might be expected to offer in order to receive the divine consideration they request. Laments are poetic protests against pain and appeals for intervention.
In Isaiah 64:1-9 the pain is brought on by the consequences of the people's iniquities, experienced most deeply as anger and alienation from God. Their appeal is for God's intervention -- to heal the alienation and to halt the damage of their sins. The people's pain is clear. How God will respond is not."
That last sentence really struck me;" the people's pain is clear, how God will respond is not" ; all is uncertain, and they are facing the unknown. That sense of facing the unknown also comes out in the Gospel reading for Sunday, where the people are encouraged to remain vigilant, to keep awake even though they do not know what is coming. These dual themes of expectation and uncertainty call us into a liminal space, a threshold we are not yet to cross, peering ahead we will find only fog, and looking back will not do us much good either.
In this uncomfortable place it would be easy to loose hope, to give up and to turn away, and I must be honest all of those things have seemed very tempting in recent months, but there is hope, and for me today the hope was held out in Paul's letter to the Corinthians:
Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns. God will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:7-9)
The place we sometimes find ourselves in, the place I am currently in may be uncomfortable and challenging, I might see no clear way forward, and the way back may be closed to me, but God IS with me. He will and has provided me with every spiritual gift I need, he will give me the strength and the courage and the wisdom to wait upon him. And so I hold my hands out in the gloom and wait for him to fill them...
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