Month: December 2020

Compared to most, we’ve managed OK this year personally – not had jobs to lose, and haven’t so far got the disease. I know it’s been harder for others, not least H & T. But all in all it’s not been a happy time for our country, and I sometimes feel as if I should have done something to make things better, but all I’ve done is snipe from the sidelines. I’m still not ready fully to embrace capitalism, for I feel that other people’s need is a claim on us. We are all connected. Naturally enough, there have been some frustrations this year, and our adventures have been very modest compared to Janet’s long walk last year. I have had a chance to get to grips with the Prayers for Places website, though, which has been fun.

As to next year, I’m still not really bedded into this place, and I’m not sure about doing new things when there’s the added complexity of COVID restrictions. But I hope I’ll do some useful stuff next year. Meanwhile, what am I going to do this Sunday, church or not church? I want to support our local village church, which is where I belong now, and it’s the Methodist Covenant Service, which I’d like to attend properly sometime, often having filched chunks of the service to use in the URC. I particularly like the bit about serving God when it suits us and when it doesn’t. OTOH it’s starting to feel antisocial to meet all these other people, even though the church is very organised and very careful about the rules and the windows are open.

Conditions underfoot were a better this morning, so I did a walk.

Misty and dull this morning, still, and temperature not very different from freezing. There’s quite a lot of ice about, so I decided my only walk this morning was going to be to the shop, as slipping and turning up at hospital with an injury would be antisocial. Maybe next year I’ll take a chance. Anyway, I accomplished the shopping mission with full verticality.

Our fairy lights are still on and will be for another week. Some people have had enough already – on the way to the shops I was forced into the road by a discarded Christmas tree.

Just had a quick look at Psalm 148 in Sunday’s Lectionary... brilliant picture of the whole creation praising its Creator, both the unpleasant stuff and the stuff helpful to humanity. The whole created world in harmony… hard to take in a time of gloom, ice, earthquakes and COVID-19, but creation is a whole and wonderful, and it’s great to study, and it deserves to be treated with respect. And we can handle the bad stuff if we understand it and prepare – so where are all the scientists in government? – an understanding of the exponential function would surely be more useful than a degree in PPE or even a second-rate degree in classics.

Please pray for the people of Croatia, and Essex…

Good news that the Astra Zeneca vaccine has been passed for use here – I was hoping that by now we’d have more light shed on those weird test results. Just a quick sum … left to itself the ‘original’ COVID spread with an R number of 3-4 ISTR. If the new strain is 50% more spreadable, then we’re looking at an R of 5-ish. If the vaccine is 60% effective , then would it cut transmission by about that percentage, a factor of 2.5 – so an R of about 2 once everyone’s been done (i.e. later this year given a following wind)? So still a need for controls on behaviour? OTOH if 90% is possible consistently, then R goes below one and we’re sorted provided enough people join in? Maybe this is a naive way to do the sums. Anyway…

…Please give thanks for the work of scientists and many others involved in producing the vaccine...

A walk in the snow this morning…

The continuity of the people of God…
For me, Sunday’s Lectionary brings to mind the continuity of the people of God. Over the years, and in different traditions, this has been represented in many ways;- by the passing down of stories; by the ‘Apostolic Succession’; in liturgy; in my tradition, by the Bible; and so on. All these rely on people. The Bible is not self-explanatory, but has to be understood and re-understood for every generation. Jesus represents change, but not a break in the continuity. Because of some of the things he said and did, and especially because of his early interpreters, I see a change in understanding of the people of God from genetic to ‘memetic’ – it’s now all about hearing and receiving ‘the word’, not about who your parents are. But even that change is founded in a much older history – for instance according to the New Testament letters, it’s Abraham’s faith that’s special, not his birth.

Sometimes that continuity is thin, it depends on only a handful of people – but that’s not the end of the world – it’s how things are sometimes. In these readings, we’ve seen the ‘remnant’ language of Jeremiah, and in Luke’s gospel we see that story of that aged prophet Simeon, who is carrying that continuity: deep inside his mind somewhere, even during the Roman oppression, he carries the hopes of his people. And when Simeon blesses the child Jesus, the gospel writer makes sure that incident gets into his story, because yes, Jesus is part of the long story, the fulfilment of the hopes of his nation.

Meanwhile..
Why isn’t there an immediate and draconian lockdown? Otherwise the only way COVID can go is up – and the hospitals are creaking at the seams already. You can’t rely on people’s good sense and kindness: some have to take risks to put bread on the table.

…So it says in the Jeremiah reading from next Sunday’s Lectionary. Despite the tears, this is a happy piece of prophecy. The people have lived through a lot, the elite have been in exile, and cut off from their homeland … now they are to return. They’ll weep, and they will be consoled. Maybe not every return to the homeland is comparable. There’s not a hint in the Jeremiah passage (31:7-14) that this particular return will be contested. There’s no word in this passage about who might have been living in the land already – possibly many of the Israelites were there already: maybe under the supervision of the Persian empire this wasn’t an issue.

But anyway, they have lived through a lot of trouble – but their troubles will end, a remnant will return to the land. What does this say to you and me? Even in the dark times, hope is still valid. Even when you’re in a minority living in a world gone strange, hope is still valid. Even when the powers that be are too strong, God “has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.” The Way of Jesus is not dead yet, not by any means.

In today’s lectionary, there’s this in Paul’s letter to the Christians in Galatia… “And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!””. Can I cultivate that spirit, that deep attachment to my caregiver God, like that of a child toddling back to its parent after the world has given it an unwelcome surprise?

God, I turn to you,
as a child turns to its mother,
as a child turns to its father,
for help and comfort.

And I recall that, right now,
all over the world,
people are in need, in fear,
searching for hope and safety and justice.
May they find
what they need so deeply.

This being a Saturday, the bank holiday doesn’t come until Monday. But it still feels like Boxing Day. There’s entertainments, sport (all remote of course), and lots of things to give it the holiday mood. But disease takes no holidays, and neither does poverty.

Apologies for the lack of blog yesterday. The server was being awkward.

Merry Christmas everyone. May you find new power in the old story.

It is Christmas in some places – others will be a while. Whichever, Christ is in human life all year round, in suffering and in love and in hope. And peace and goodwill are for life, not just for Christmas.

Who are these people at the edge of my imagination: hooded, cold, stooped, hungry, shuffling forward, waiting in line?

God give hope to every person
as we celebrate the coming of Jesus.