Dreaming of a RIGHT Christmas

It's been a better week. No less busy - just better. Thanks to all of you who dropped by with kind thoughts and words of encouragement. We've got a holiday coming up and I'm looking forward to getting away from the parish for a while and 'getting my head showered' as we say in Ireland (ie. getting some p and q).

Part of what's turned things around is the excitement I feel at a project we've just embarked on at St Hackett's. We've called it Dreaming of a Right Christmas, and it's based on an idea that's been rattling round in my mind for a few years now. Last week I preached on the Parable of the Mustard seed, and it seemed like the God-given time to pursue this seed of an idea with my congregation.

How is it we've managed to turn Christmas so completely on it's head? We tell the story each year - the story of God giving those who were spiritually poor the most precious gift of his Son - and we turn it around so we can give more stuff to people who already have more than they'll ever need. We rehearse the Santa myth with the kids, forgetting that St Nicholas was all about blessing the poor in his community. Other than going to church a little more often, is the way we celebrate Christmas as Christians any different from what everyone else does? Don't we end up as overdrawn and overfed and overstressed as the next person?

We've decided to commit to doing things differently this year, and Right Christmas will help us in two ways. Firstly, we're going to encourage people to simplify and de-stress; to make better choices about how they use their time and money at Christmas. We're going to direct them to ideas and resources that are more in keeping with the true meaning of the season.

And secondly, we're going to undertake a wide range of simple, easily organised fundraisers to generate revenue for a particular project so we can give a Christmas gift to those who really need one. At the moment we're still discussing our options, but it seems likely that we'll be supporting a children's school in Gulshan, a poor suburb of Dhaka in Bangladesh.

I've challenged the congregation to take up the gauntlet, both as individuals and groups that meet under our auspices, and find ways that they can raise some finance towards this goal. It's exciting to see what people are already coming up with - a sponsored slim (!), initiatives where we cut down on Christmas cards (something we're trying to involve the local Primary school in), running a fundraising puppet show, carol singing. Who knows where this is going to end...? I'm not sure, but I hope and pray that our efforts can become a sign of a Right Christmas in our parish and beyond. I'll keep you posted!

FBL

One of those days

Some days you wake up and it's all just too much. At times in this job, life and work seem frighteningly co-terminous, like a Venn diagram where the two circles are so overlapping they're practically one.

I know that ministry is demanding, but this isn't the life I voted for.

Today I pulled myself out of bed with little or no energy for living; the tiredness spawning ten negative thoughts before breakfast. I am tired, not physically, but spiritually and emotionally. Tired of the drab grey shawl of responsibility which I wear as though it were my very skin. Tired of walking this lonely road with few companions. Tired of myself and what I seem to be becoming. Tired of carrying the weight of things I haven't managed to get done. Tired of feeling like my life is out of my hands. Tired of looking for a life in the middle of all of this. Today I could weep - and indeed have wept - at how utterly drained I feel.

Rosie, who knows me better than anyone, had the good sense to hear me out in the few moments we got together after breakfast. She is a wonderfully caring and strong person and I'd be lost without her. But this malaise runs deep. And my secret worry is that the problem isn't to do with ministry - it's to do with me, and my inability to order things well enough to follow this vocation and still lead a rich and fulfilling life. I don't think I'm any busier than anyone else in this line of work. Why is it I find it so hard to make room for those things that are life-giving?

I held all of this before God in a few quiet moments in the study this morning. It was good to be still for a while, though it felt like a guilty luxury. And in that stillness an unexpected memory surfaced.

It's the memory of a song I haven't listened to for years; a song called 'King of Birds' by REM. And what I was remembering wasn't just the song itself, but hearing it performed live when I saw them on the Green Tour back in about 1987 or 1988. Back then they were in their ascendency - all brash noise and jangling guitars - but in the middle of this raucous set they toned it right down and played this haunting, minimalist piece with Peter Buck on pedal-steel guitar. It was a truly magical moment - they held us in their hands and we knew it. Though you can find it on Document, nothing will ever compare to hearing it live in that context for the first time, and I doubt it would resonate with you in the same way.

Why that memory, though?

God, I need that surprise: that sudden connection with beauty. I need it to fill the cavernous, empty auditorium that is my soul and shock me into the realisation that something new and glorious and transcendent can happen to me again.

For whatever reason, that song (and one or two others) holds out for me a sonic vision of another world to which I know I belong, and which I'm heartsick for. The world where I am truly me, and you are truly you, and "all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well".

I caught a glimpse of that world today, from this dark place I'm in. And though it's not an answer, for now it's been enough.


Follow the link to see King of Birds performed live by REM.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49AMohGRtow

Creed

Every now and again I visit a wonderful place down near Perth called "The Bield". "Bield" is an old Scottish word with resonances of shelter, rest and refuge and it's a great place to go when you need a dirty weekend away with God.

http://www.bieldatblackruthven.org.uk/The%20Bield%20at%20Blackruthven/Welcome.html

As part of the programme, there's the option of attending devotions in the wee chapel, led by the staff, and I always seem to come away with something rich from those times. In the middle of another busy week (are there ever any quiet ones?!) I simply want to post a poem I heard there which has stayed with me ever since. It's by Adrian Plass and it's called 'Creed'.

CREED

I cannot say my creed in words.
How should I spell despair, excitement, joy and grief,
amazement, anger, certainty and unbelief?
What was the grammar of those sleepless nights?
Who the subject? What the object
of a friend who will not come,or does not come?
And then creates his own eccentric special dawn:
a blinding light that does not blind.

Why do I find you in the secret wordless places
where I hide from your eternal light?
I hate you.
I love you.
I miss you.
I wish that you would go,
and yet I know that long ago
you made a fairytale for me:
About the day that you would take your sword
and battle through the thicket of the things I have become.
You’ll kiss to life my sleeping beauty,
waiting for her prince to come.
Then I will wake,
and look into your eyes,
and understand.

And for the first time, I will not be dumb.
And I shall say my creed in words.


Two things I love about that. God's determination to "battle through the thicket of the things I have become", and the prospect of finally, one day, finding the right words.

TODAY'S GLOWING EMBERS OF TRUTH: Know thyself? If I knew myself I'd probably run away....