Angels

 It must be hard to be an angel

Wherever, whenever they show up in the Christmas story

they spend the first five minutes saying "don't be afraid"

I wonder, idly, what it must be like to be that intimidating

It's hard, at 5ft, to intimidate anyone - I struggle to get a drink in a bar:

to make my voice heard - this Christmas, my parent tells me "I'm not deaf - it's you"

The angels rock choir turns up, excited and unable to contain themselves for joy

and a tight knot of boys with sheep guarding duties gets a look in on cosmic events.

How like the God I try to worship to tell me "don't be afraid" - he knows I need to hear it

And how like God to spill over into the black darkness of our world in a way that my mind can't handle

Dictates from on high

 Someone in power issues an edict and the ripples and rivulets of this decision

impact a teenage couple and their relations

Pregnant, uncomfortable, not good for travel - I am sure Mary and Joseph had plans for a birth

at home, surrounded with love, somewhere for a loved child.

But, instead after a tedious, unwanted isolated journey, they arrive 

and Jesus is born - laid in the hasty equivalent of a drawer lined with straw.

An animal feeding box, for a treasured boy.

This morning, isolation threatens - again.

Sometime, someone  in power will issue an edict

And the ripples and rivulets of this decision

 will impact families.  Loved ones in care homes,

people in their twenties longing for parties and the relief of some fun.

Lonely and vulnerable people, those who struggle with solitude.

the workers for whom WFH means a cramped space on a sofa in a shared house.

The packers and drivers, small companies and supply chain workers

And their families.  Minimum waged, lacking in paid sick pay.

Many on zero hours contracts.

But the people on high couldn't give a toss.

what is a little decision like that to them?

it's not like they will feel the impact

For them, the party will go on.

Gaudete

 Gaudete.  Rejoice, Joy sunday.  A pink candle on the Advent wreath. And I am grateful,  This Advent, for Jesus, born of Mary, for Mary whose willingness to be part of this at such cost enabled it all.  For the light in my own darkness.  This year, no depression, no SAD.  Beyond a little bit of seasonal grumpiness and lethargy.  For the light of Jesus, which means there is hope this dark season with threats of COVID/Omnicron/rising taxes, rising prices.  Rejoice - and roll up your sleeves and work to make the kingdom come!

Why the explosion of joy?  Quite simply I have a negative covid test despite being pinged by the app, and an eye watering, nose bleeding 24 hours of anxious waiting.  We are surrounded at work by drivers, warehouse staff, trainers, and managers and office staff.  We have strict rules - masks, sneeze screens, temperatures taken, wiping down desks, phones each evening.  But as I had a cold, and my colleague has children in school - it was a possibility.  And now I feel like those TV photos of calves being let out to fresh grass in Spring.  Except - I still have not much more than a squ eak for a voice from oral steroids.

I have listened to Gaudete - that amazing vocal classic by Steeleye Span, both the original 1970s version and a more modern version by them.  Their voices sound even better. Haunting.  For an absolute non musical philistine, this Advent I have discovered "Hills of the North Rejoice" and the song Judith hated - "Lo, he comes with clouds, descending" admittedly awful (aweful?) words but a fabulous tune which even a non singer like me can have a go at belting out at a good volume.

The 24 year old lass who plays the organ at St Marks likes to "make the windows rattle" and it is a good sound.  It's just that I feel I am in a time warp,  But having had a year of online worship, I'm just so glad to be around. Because I will always be grateful to Belmont chapel, my home, who gave me so much.  To whom I must seem so ungrateful.  But, in a congregation which barely tops 50 worshippers, it is a little easier not to drown.

Prophets and Profits

 Today is another candle on the wonky Amazon fake greenery Advent wreath.  As a complete newbie to all things traditional, Anglican and higher than the St Leonards end of church, I have learned these candles have meaning - except this seems to vary, depending on which wikipedia source you read!  Nothing strange there.

Personally I like the "Patriarchs/prophets/Mary/John the Baptist explanation for the three deep red candles.  The third one is, apparently, rose - the "joy" candle.  Quite frankly my candle is Barbie pink! The white candle is the middle is the light of Christ and that I light every morning when I pray as it is any excuse to have some light on a dark Winter morning.  For some reason, this fills me with joy.  I have my fairy lights up in the front room and when my non church going friends from work come for dinner, Emily says "you can't have them up, it's not December" I tell her that they are Advent fairy lights !!!  Any excuse for multi colour living room joy.

At work we have corporate Christmas cutouts of snowmen/reindeer/elves and penguins(?) in the appropriate group colours pinned to our "Sneeze screens" and tinsel around everything.  I've been given an Elf crew mug, and Friday's Christmas jumper for Save the Children day.  I love it, I am not scrooge, it's just there is something in me, deeply, that wants to keep Christmas as that twelve days festival that starts on Christmas Eve.  Ex.cept you know I won't.  I will give in and put the tree up