Month: December 2020

I’ve now found the battery chargers I thought I’d lost, and I set out this morning under the stars, with the head torch on. It developed into a pleasant morning with patches of mist, and a little frost in susceptible places.

From the Christmas Day Lectionary, Luke 2:1… “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.” Lots of people resent bureaucracy, and in this case I guess that might have been fair, as I imagine the probable reason for any registration in the Roman Empire was to levy taxes – and how handy for the narrator that this process left the Nazarene family in the David’s town of Bethlehem for Jesus’ birth! (Also, wasn’t that a slightly ridiculous journey to make just for a headcount?) However, don’t knock bureaucracy – it also means that governments can assess people’s needs and provide for them.

Anyway, it’s all about Jesus, and whatever his royal credentials – comparable to Danny Dyer’s, maybe – in him we see the love of God like nowhere else. He changed the world, and even though people have fought bitter wars and oppressed both nations and family members in his name, if we come back to him and learn from him, there is still hope for us.

From the Christmas Day lectionary, one of the options (Isaiah 9)…
“9:4 For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
9:5 For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
9:6 For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
As we look forward to celebrating Jesus, and remembering God’s promises to the Israelites which I now see fulfilled in him, maybe it’s worth thinking who now is living under that burden, the rod of the oppressor, who fears the sound of the tramping warriors? There are people on every continent oppressed by occupying forces, or by their own governments, or by violent people who know they can get away with it.

Consider in your own mind
who is oppressed, subject to violence:
think of examples you know about
from anywhere in the world…
…and pray for change.

Last night I watched half of “The Death of Stalin”. I found it too chilling to be funny. Yet I had no problem with the violent bits of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I don’t know why. Maybe the death of Stalin was too close to home. Maybe the behaviours on display were too much like the behaviour of our non-violent, democratic leaders. Maybe it’s because Russian imperialism is still a threat. America got it wrong – the problem with government in Russia was never socialism, it was always imperialism – to say nothing of the occasionally resurfacing habit of killing dissidents (although thankfully now in smaller numbers). Not that either of those tendencies is confined to Russia. Lots of leaders would do it if they could. Plus Russia itself is a brilliant nation in many ways.

Led a brief service this morning (only the second time in nearly two years): I was beginning to forget how much of a push it is. In my new relatively relaxed life it represents a bit of a peak.

Meanwhile the virus has spawned a new form which transmits more easily and it’s set to become very difficult for hospitals. I had a quick glimpse of a graph on the BBC yesterday or the day before, and even back in September it looked as if the virus was growing more, proportionally, in the South and East than it was in the North and West. What the government is asking for now is that people sacrifice their happiness so that other people may live, which is of course right, but hard. However it seems to me our leaders understand the idea of sacrifice chiefly in terms of throwing other people under buses.

God protect all people, all nations in these difficult times.

From tomorrow’s lectionary, a Psalm fragment … “89:2 I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.” How could the writer decide that God’s love was ‘steadfast’ after all the good and bad experiences the people had been through? There must be more to faith than just ‘God has blessed me, things must be OK.’ Not only do people of faith suffer sometimes. Also people who are utter so-and-so’s sometimes prosper – and in their prospering cause others a lot of grief.

But somewhere at the back of everything is a God of love and mercy and hope.

Never mind the greyness, just feel the warmth. We’re blessed with air from the tropical seas, so make the most of it. Soon, rain will fall. But for the next few minutes, it’s delightful.

I’m not a big fan of temporary happiness – the prospect of the end of happiness or forthcoming trouble kind of overshadows the present – that just seems to be my psychology. However, my faith gives me the chance to paste my happinesses and unhappinesses into a bigger story, the story of God’s love acting in the world. Sometimes that story runs beneath the surface, sometimes it’s told openly. One such time is Mary’s song, what later generations call ‘The Magnificat’, one of Sunday’s lectionary readings…

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

I wonder how many ‘rich’ and ‘powerful’ people have said those words regularly and with untroubled hearts throughout the generations of the church.

Did some unplanned sitting down today on a piece of grass next to the mud where my now almost treadless boots slipped. Fortunately no-one was around to witness the mistake. Well you have to have an element of adventure in your walk, don’t you?

Christmas is now approaching like an express train, or like the buffers, depending on your view. Yes, it’s all about your frame of reference, and one inertial frame of reference feels very much like another. Is our society moving? I fear so – but we might not notice. By what tiny steps did some people in Germany come to adopt Nazi views? – I fear it can happen anywhere, anytime, and from inside the frame one might not notice.

Watched The Aeronauts last night. An exciting film – but remember it’s only a story. (Small spoiler alert!) Couldn’t work out why the balloon emerged from a thunderstorm free of ice, then accumulated loads of the stuff (of frosty appearance) when in the dry air further aloft. Maybe the balloon was already wet.

It’s raining here, but not too much. Maybe it’s the Welsh mountains we have to thank for that. It is, however, quite blusterous in exposed places. (I heard ‘blusterous’ on a weather forecast recently, so it must be OK. Maybe the presenters have a bet on to see who can get the most Winnie the Pooh words into forecasts over Christmas. I just hope that no-one finds themselves ‘entirely surrounded by water’.) I seem to remember there’s a prayer in the old Church of England prayer book that asks for ‘moderate rain’, or ‘showers’ or some such. Our whole national infrastructure, agricultural system, everything depends on moderation in our weather, which is now set to become even more buggered up by anthropogenic climate change. We should be praying again for moderation in our weather and for world leaders* with the guts to do what it takes to achieve this. But let’s also pray for love that is not just moderate, but 100% committed, like Christ’s love for us.

* So how about moving our Parliament to Mytholmroyd – it might concentrate the minds of all those anti-wind power nimbys?

This is worrying reading (suggesting that China’s Uighur minority are being forced into work camps to pick cotton) particularly a week after watching ‘Schindler’s List’.

Pray for all who are slaves today, in industrial or domestic settings, for trafficked sex-workers, for people who have no choices in life and have to do harsh, demeaning or dangerous work.

I seem to remember that was an advertising slogan for washing powder many decades ago. Maybe not, because I couldn’t find it on Wikipedia.

In Luke’s story where the angel (messenger) tells Mary she’s going to get pregnant, the angel makes this assertion;- “For nothing will be impossible with God.” I never noticed the future tense before – so maybe it’s to do with a special moment in history. However, I believe that God created the universe and keeps it going – so strictly speaking, nothing can be impossible for the God who created everything, ever. I don’t think that’s the point though. I also believe that a significant aspect of God’s faithfulness is the reliability of the laws of nature*. On the whole, people have discovered that our lives are constrained (and made wonderful) by those laws. We have to walk our walk with God in this constrained and wonderful world. That is the challenge of faith.

And when you see warring people reconciled, when people in poverty are fed, when the silent voices are heard at last, then those words hit you like a sledgehammer … “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

* Of all the weird and wonderful laws of nature, probably the most slippery is that law of thermodynamics which describes the inevitable increase of entropy. And that’s the only one you have to break for lots of very unexpected things to happen. Suppose a lot of odd circumstances happened to combine one day….

Today is approximately the day of the darkest evening, which comes a little before the winter solstice.

I’m waiting in the front room, LED fairy lights in the window with the pre-dawn darkness outside; lights shining in a dark world. I’m waiting for a parcel that was undelivered yesterday when I was out walking. It seems to me that there are some very long and difficult working hours going on at the moment. COVID (and Christmas) has left many people working well into the red zone (not least in the NHS), and many others without jobs. Past economic disturbances have had similar effects. Maybe it’s more economical that way until you realise that the human cost may manifest itself in increased demands on health and social services, social security or whatever fancy name it is given for political reasons….

ISTR a song that ran “Someone’s working on the night shift…”, though I can’t track it down at the moment. Almost all of my life at the moment takes place in the day, but I do remember some nights from the past – a long conversation that lasted until the milkman clinked round the streets; walking round the grating-galleries of a power station between the instrument hut and the toilet, feeling as if I had the place to myself; singing daft songs to a sick baby daughter…

A lot of work now takes place outside the nine to five, five days a week. And it’s hard work, physically, mentally or emotionally draining. According to Luke, the shepherds came to Jesus at night. Maybe he was born in the night. The Christmas story is full of night-time and stars, and stuff like that. It’s a reminder that Jesus is light for the world, meaning that he shows is the path through life plus way more. No wonder the early Christians adopted the pagan winter festival to celebrate Jesus, light in the darkness.

“Someone’s working on the night shift…” and it’s our God and Creator.

God of love,
we remember with gratitude,
and with concern,
people working in the night,
hospital workers, police, social services,
firefighters, electricity, water, gas workers,
the ‘night-time economy’,
transport, continuous production,
millions more people too,
working in the night.
God strengthen them and give them
good rest.
God we thank you for all that they do.
We thank you for coming into our lives
in Jesus Christ,
light in the darkness.

Please pray for Nigeria