Odyssey: Returning from a Fog

I drove home last Monday. As I passed through the moors on the top of the Pennines, on the M62, the highest motorway point in England, I entered into dense fog, it continued all the way home, and it only really dissipated as I pulled into the drive . It was the same driving back to Altrincham, although it cleared as I joined the ring road. It was not an unfamiliar feeling as I have felt like I’ve been living in a bit of a fog these last few months, haven’t we all. I have to say my personal fog seems to have lifted ever since Christmas morning, for this I am oh so grateful.

Life is often described as a journey, although the truth be told it is a road to nowhere, we don’t go anywhere. We go round in circles and end up returning to same place many times. That said we return often changed in all kinds of way, sometimes with treasure to share. The lovely thing about returning home of course is that the return comes with the sense of belonging, to a place where you finally belong. I suspect it is the same when we go on our final journey. I have been thinking of the many folk, this Christmas season, I have journeyed with during my life, who are no longer with us, but who shared their treasures with myself and others. For this I offer thanks and praise.

 Tom I want to share with you a short poem by Tom Leonard titled “Odysseus”

“Odysseus” by Tom Leonard

it took me so long to get back to who I am
why was I away so long why was the journey so tortuous
all those false masks against a backdrop narrative to do with authenticity

but now arriving back there is still much debris to clear
the clearer to see the point from which I started

that from which I set out confused in sundry identities at war with themselves
now to find calm on that setting-out point as the final destination

As I was coming back to my home in Altrincham I found myself singing one of the chants I have shared in “Singing Meditation” the words were: “The Earth, the air, the fire, the water, return, return, return, return”. It was the final words “return, return, return,” that kept singing round and round in my heart.

This got me thinking about a conversation I heard on Oddysseus and the Odyssey, I think a friend had seen the old classic Hollywood movie. Now while we might not be fighting mythical beasts we are all on an adventure, a kind of Odyssey. That throughout our lives we step out we get lost, we find ourselves in the dark of winter lost in a fog, but that eventually we return home, or at least yearn to return home, often enlightened by the adventure. The call for home is a powerful one.

Human history is littered with stories and adventures inspired by the search for treasure, for wisdom, for enlightenment. Think of the great figures of religion Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed, Gandhi, they all stepped out into the wild alone and returned enlightened. Think also of the heroic figures from the great stories, they did likewise. They were called out into the unknown, only to return with something new and inspiring. They stepped into the dark, but came home in the light. Stories such as Jason and the Argonauts or many of the other Greek tales, Pilgrims Progress, Gulliver’s Travels, The Wizard of Oz, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Lord of the Rings the list is endless. Human history is littered with folk tales and myths which teach us so much about what life is in all its potential both for beauty and horror.

Joseph Campbell, who spent years exploring such myths, believed that these stories helped us to fully understand how each of us at some point in our lives or at many moments of our lives are called out to journey forth. He identified four distinct stages of the journey. The first stage Campbell named “The Call to Adventure”. This he claimed is caused by discontent, which draws us out of the comfort of our lives to risk something new; the second stage is a form of initiation where the hero goes through a series of ordeals that test their mental and physical skills; The third stage is the time of revelation the discovery of truth and treasure; the final stage is the return to one’s community. With wisdom gained and with treasure to share. Coming home in the light, coming out of the dark or a thick fog, if you like.

These adventures began and ended with a call. They began with a powerful call to adventure, but they also ended with an equally powerful call, to return home. Just think of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and those immortal words as she clicked her ruby slippers “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.” Similar to those three words that came to me as I drove through the fog, “return, return, return.

The call to return, especially to return home is a powerful call. This call though is not just about returning to a place, it is also about time I believe; about returning to a time in life when everything was simpler and safer. I’m sure that this was Dorothy’s call in “The Wizard of Oz”.

This is the call of nostalgia. To return to the place of safety the place of paradise, where we were cared for and looked after. Nostalgia though is often blind and perhaps senseless. It can also be painful. Things are never quite as we remember them.

Nostalgia is an interesting word. Like so many words it has changed in meaning over time. Originally it meant “severe homesickness considered as a disease” from the German heimweh (home+woe) homesickness. It is rooted in the ancient Greek words “algos” meaning pain, Grief, distress and “nostos” meaning homecoming. Nostalgia is a painful homecoming.

There is a similar Welsh word “Hiraeth” which is a mixture of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness or an earnest desire for the Wales of the past. The Cornish and Breton equivalents are "hireth" and "hiraezh". The truth is that reality and memory are not always the same.

The physical return home can also be painful, especially if what we are returning with is seemingly not wanted. Sometimes you might be rejected on the first return. Think of Jack and his beans in the story “Jack and the Beanstalk.” There is an account in Mark’s Gospel of Jesus returning home and being rejected and almost mocked. As he said to his disciples ‘Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.’

Sometimes we might not be recognised when we return home, how painful can that be. We can feel like a stranger in our own land. Think of Odysseus who is recognised by no one on his return. It is only as he begins to speak that his old, now blind, dog recognises his voice and his tail begins to thud with joy and love and recognition.

I remember a painful experience in my own life many years ago. There had been quite sudden and dramatic changes in my life, I have never been quite the same person since. I remember over the months that ensued that I would go home for a few days and return quite frustrated, with this feeling that my family and my loved ones were not accepting me as I was. I remember going to see my minister at the time, John Midgely and voicing this. I remember John calmly saying to me, after listening to me going on with myself for quite some time, “Danny you have gone through some quite dramatic changes and while you have adjusted to this it will take others some time. People are not quite sure how to be with you. They are used to you being a certain way and it will take them some time to adjust to the new you.” I remember thinking to myself how wise these words were. I also reflected some time later that perhaps I’d not changed that much as it was still all about me. Instead of me wanting them to adjust to and understand me, I was the one who ought to have been adjusting to and understanding them. These days I rarely feel unaccepted wherever I go and am gratefully received if I come to preach in my home town. I am loved amongst my kin and welcome in every home. I am recognised as I truly am too.

Well at least this has been the case until recently, when I found myself in that fog. I felt unaccepted and unwelcome, not that anyone else made me feel this way. I did this to myself and thankfully I have moved through this and come to a place of self acceptance once again, the fog has cleared thank God. The truth is I have always been loved and accepted as I am, I just haven’t always felt this way. The journey home this week has shown this to me once again, “there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.” It was wonderful to share stories and laughter once again. I also remembered some rather beautiful experiences of being with folk who are long gone, who I have not thought of in a long time. The warmth and love I remember feeling in their company and homes, as a little lad. Recently all I have been remembering are less than lovely feelings as I have been in a less than lovely personal space. Just shows to me once again that we remember our past through the lens of our current experiences. Some say you cannot change the past. It is true that the facts remain the same, but they way they are remembered are under constant change.

Earlier we heard the wonderful poem “Art of poetry” Jorge Borges. Like Joseph Campbell Borges recognised a common theme in all the great stories. In this poem he explores some of the great ancient Greek stories. One being Ulysses (which is the Latin translation of Odysseus) and his painful return to Ithaca. He also talks of the philosopher Heraclitus who suggested that we can never return to the same river. This is because water continual flows on and on and the water we step into is never quite the same, but also because we who stand in the river are not the same person either, life will have changed us too…Like the river our lives, go on and on, ever changing. The lesson is that it is not about yearning to return to some mythical ideal, but to fully experience the adventure, the beautiful journey as the poem by Constantine Cavafy, “Ithacca” suggests. This is the lesson of Homer’s Odyssey and perhaps all the great stories. The treasure is the journey itself.

Life is a journey and a beautiful one at that. One in which we are constantly turning and returning again and again and again. It is not always an easy one and one where there will be troubles and difficulties. There will be times when we will not be recognised and may not even recognise ourselves; there will be times when we will feel completely lost and won’t know where to turn for sanctuary; there will be times of darkness too, when we find ourselves lost in a fog, but we all must journey on. In the end of course we return from where we came. We return, return, return, from the beautiful Odyssey. We step out of the fog, out of the darkness for the final time and return into the light…

Please find below a video devotion

based on the material in this "blogspot"

It comes in the little things

I love the farmer poet Wendell Berry. The following “Sabbaths” is a favourite. It is sometimes thought to be about death, a bleak piece. It isn’t really, what it is about is generosity; generosity is about living and doing so by giving.

Sabbaths – 1993, I

No, no, there is no going back.

Less and less you are

that possibility you were.

More and more you have become

those lives and deaths

that have belonged to you.

You have become a sort of grave

containing much that was

and is no more in time, beloved

then, now, and always.

And you have become a sort of tree

standing over a grave.

Now more than ever you can be

generous toward each day

that comes, young, to disappear

forever, and yet remain

unaging in the mind.

Every day you have less reason

not to give yourself away.

Generosity is about the heart; it does not require material abundance to live by generosity When I think of the gifts that have been given to me in my life, I do not think of material things, what comes to mind is the loving gift of their presence that folk shared, their love and their support, and their inspiration. They gave of themselves, truly from their own often breaking and vulnerable hearts. To me this is the true spirit of Christmas.

This year, the last two years, have been a difficult struggle for most of us. It has been hard to keep going at times. I have struggled myself in so many ways. Yes, I have given all that I have, perhaps more, as have so many others. I am not alone. I have also gratefully received from so many too, haven’t we all. I was approached in the street the other day. The person just wanted to ask how I was and to thank me, to simply say “ thank you for all that you do.” Gosh I cannot tell how grateful I felt in that moment. I have known and witnessed so much love, born in the human heart. On Christmas Eve as I shared our Christmas Eve service I do not believe I have known and experienced a love anything like it. It was so beautiful I could have wept. I did as I refelt it all a little later. As I awoke on Christmas morning I did so with the broadest most beaming smile.

This Advent season has not been easy, a struggle at times. I know it has been for most of us. What has lifted my heart and kept me going has been a simple phrase “it comes in the little things”. It all began the week beginning 13th December. I had gone to bed in a bit of state. I was stressed, I was exhausted, my gland had swelled up below my chin. I was dehydrated and utterly exhausted. My mood was very low, the next day I decided to take things a little easier. I felt I had hit another rock bottom. I found myself going deeper into prayer. I went for a walk that afternoon, in an attempt to connect with life. When I retuned, there was a lovely gift left on the step of the chapel house. There were two tubes of milky bar buttons, left by a friend who knows I am a bit of a “Milky Bar Kid”. As the day continued I found the following phrase singing in my heart “it comes in the little things”. So, I posted online about the gift and the things I noticed that day. I have been doing so ever since.

On awakening each morning, I have considered the day before and expressed my thanks by talking of the little things I have noticed in my life that have lifted my heart, that have given me hope, that have helped me stay connected and thus overcome any sense of despair. It has helped and I know it has helped others. It has been my attempt to offer thanks and to live in and through gratitude. I have decided to continue it into the New Year. Each morning I am going to share those little things, that are truly everything. Maybe it is something we could all try. Think each day what are the little things, that lift your heart, that connect you to life and others and inspire you to live in love and gratitude throughout that day. Please feel free to share them. In so doing we can keep these gifts alive; in so doing we become givers ourselves, as we pass these gifts along. To paraphrase good old Wendell Berry, every day we have less reason not to give ourselves away.

The phrase is inspired by the following poem “Immanence” by Evelyn Underhill

“Immanence” by Evelyn Underhill

I come in the little things,
Saith the Lord;
Not borne on morning wings
Of majesty; but I have set my feet
Amidst the delicate and bladed wheat
That springs triumphant in the furrowed sod—
There do I dwell, in weakness and in power;
Not broken or divided, said our God!
In your straight garden plot I come to flower;
About your porch my vine,
Meek, fruitful, doth entwine,
Waits, at the threshold, Love's appointed hour.

I come in the little things,
Saith the Lord;
Yea, on the glancing wings
Of eager birds, the soft and pattering feet
Of furred and gentle beasts, I come to meet
Your hard and wayward heart. In brown bright eyes
That peep from out the brake, I stand confest.
On every nest
Where feathery Patience is content to brood
And leaves her pleasure for the high emprise
Of motherhood—
There does my Godhead rest.

I come in the little things,
Saith the Lord;
My starry wings I do forsake,
Love's highway of humility to take;
Meekly I fit my stature to your need.
In beggar's part
About your gates I shall not cease to plead
As man, to speak with man
Till by such art
I shall achieve my immemorial plan;
Pass the low lintel of the human heart.

Obviously it is the line “I come in the little things, thus saeth the Lord”, that has inspired my musings and awakened my heart. That the Divine love is present in everything, although sometimes it is easy not to notice. The last few weeks have reminded me I need to keep paying attention to those little things. It is not in the glitz and the glammer and the loudness, I don’t notice it there. I witness it in the little things, those that we don’t always notice. Annette, the editor of our magazine reminded me to “Keep on enjoying the blackbird singing, the scruffy (scratty actually) magpie and the wild geese flying over. There's also the cherry blossom which will appear surprisingly soon in the scheme of things.” These are the beautiful and natural things that lift my heart, when sometimes it feels like it has fallen. It comes in the little things, the ordinary things, these are the true blessings of life.

“I am done with great things” wrote the philosopher and psychologist William James in a letter to a friend. Sharing his conviction that his focus was no longer on big or grand things, but with the small almost invisible decisions. He wrote:

“I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride.”

The Letters of William James, ed. by his son Henry James (Boston: Atlantic Monthy Press, 1920), 2:90; letter to Mrs. Henry Whitman, June 7, 1899.

It comes in the little things, the miraculous is to be found in the mundane. Annie Dillard wrote: “The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.” She had a way of unmasking the extraordinary dimensions of the ordinary life. In “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” (1974) she describes how a simple act of adventurous generosity can bring joy to the ordinary.

“When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I’ve never been seized by it since. For some reason I always “hid” the penny along the same stretch of sidewalk up the street. I would cradle it at the roots of a sycamore, say, or in a hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk. Then I would take a piece of chalk, and, starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions. After I learned to write I labeled the arrows: SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY. I was greatly excited, during all this arrow-drawing, at the thought of the first lucky passer-by who would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. But I never lurked about. I would go straight home and not give the matter another thought, until, some months later, I would be gripped again by the impulse to hide another penny.”

There are ways to bring simple joys to one another’s lives, often through our playfulness and generosity, just like that friend who left those “Milky Bar” buttons on my doorstep.

It is the little things that keep us going through the dark and difficult. Sometimes we can lose sight of them, or we can forget about them. Thankfully there are others who can help remind us of these things, that lift our hearts, when they have fallen, when we feel we cannot go on.

There is a wonderful example of this in the final pages of JRR Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”

Frodo and Sam are nearing the end of their quest, they are desperate and struggling as they try to reach the cursed Mount Doom to cast the ring of power, a device that held much of the dark lord Sauron’s power, into the fires and destroy it. The closer they get to the mountain the more desperate their situation grows. They are weakened physically and spiritually, all hope seems to have gone. Frodo the hero is dispirited and so Sam, his loyal and constant companion, does his best to lift up his hopes. He asks him if he remembers the taste of strawberries and cream, the sound of water, the beauties of spring in their far-off home, the Shire. Sam lifts up Frodo’s spirit, by reminding him of the little things and thus he finds the courage to carry on, to go and complete his task. The power was found in the love of such little things. Afterall it is the little things that really matter, that make our lives what they are. “I come in the little things, thus saeth the Lord”

It matters what we do and what we do not do, they impact on one another’s lives. Some say what does it matter what we as individuals do, it will make no difference. It isn’t true though is it. I just have to think of those “milky bar” buttons, they made a world of difference to me. Or at least they helped to turn me around. I responded in love and I know by simply sharing the little things, I have been able to impact positively on the lives of others. Who knows what positive impacts that might be having on many others too. Just because we cannot do everything, we seem insignificant, yet what we do can make the world of difference. As Edward Everett Hale said:

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.” – Edward Everett Hale

Like everyone I feel deep sadness at times. I have felt it recently, as I have struggled with my personal life and the suffering of so many others. That said I do not descend into total despair, I get lifted up once again by some simple ordinary gifts of life. There are blessings everywhere, we just need to pay attention.

I have never known a love deeper, than I have these last few days, “no greater love has there ever been, than what felt for you, what you gave to me, you saved my life from this…So many tears, so many tears…”

It comes in the little things, the almost unnoticed things. All we have to do is pay attention and share what we have with one another.

“I come in the little things, saeth the Lord”

Below is a video based on the material in this "blogspot"

Seeking the Spirit of Christmas

Last Sunday after I’d finished my third service at Styal Kath Walker said to me “It feels like Christmas has begun now.” I heard others expressing similar sentiments over the weekend. I heard after the Brass Band Carol Concert on Saturday. A deeply emotional occassion for so many, including the band themselves. They told us that it was their first concert since they played att eh chapel two Christmasses ago. The Eccles Borough Band are a talented and successful competion band. It has been a hard time for them. I do hope that you are getting into the spirit of the season, don’t we all need it. This is such a difficult time. I do hope at least, despite everything, that folk feel that Christmas has begun.

Now to be factually accurate we are wrong you know. Christmas hasn’t begun at all, well it hasn’t if you wish to be theologically accurate. Christmas doesn’t begin until sunset on Christmas Eve. I remember a rather Bah humbuggy Baptist tutor saying that he tried to stop his congregations singing carols in Advent, but never succeeded. I am glad to hear so Christmas is not about reason and fact, where are the glad tidings in this? Christmas is about heart and spirit and not theological correctness. Christmas is the ultimate universal mythos, bringing light and joy in the darkest and coldest time of the year. Something we all need, particularly at this time in our lives.

Do we need to believe in the theological accuracy of the Biblical accounts to believe in Christmas? I don’t think so. You can’t in any case as even they don’t agree. That said what is at the heart of Christmas? What is its universal message? What is the mythos deep within the story? Are you a hypocrite if you say you believe absolutely in Christmas but not that the events took place exactly as they are described?

Mythos isn’t about fact it is about universal truth. Well, there is a deep universal truth at the heart of the Christmas mythos, a truth that speaks through every generation. A truth that is needed today in 2021 just as much as it was in any other times and places. Gosh how I need to feel that spirit alive in this life. So yes, I believe in Christmas.

My mum recently shared a story of my brother coming to her distressed asking if Father Christmas was real. Apparently, a girl at school had said that he wasn’t. My brother is nearly two years older than me. I remember him telling me this was the case that evening. I simply said I know, I’ve known a long time. He asked why I said nothing. I said I didn’t want to spoil it for anyone else. Besides which I still believed in the power of Father Christmas and I believe in him even more today.

Yes, we all know that Christmas has its root in pre-Christianity. And yes we also know that Christmas has seemingly been taken over by consumerism. Many today say there is no spirit left too, that it is basically a secular holiday. There are many forces who do not seemingly believe in the spirit of Christmas. Mr Scrooge is not the only Bah Humbugger around. There are those who say it is just another day, what does it matter. I heard someone say recently it is just a slightly fancier meal.

Christmas isn’t just about the day its about giving birth to love and hope and don’t we all need that. I’m not interested in getting tied down by reason and fact, I believe in mythos. Christmas fills me with so much. It is a time for nostalgia, for connecting the past, to the present and building hope for the future, a bit like the three spirits who visited Mr Scrooge. Christmas reminds us how important generosity of spirit and heart is. It breeds goodwill to all, it helps us to see that there is one human family, despite all the forces around who would to divide us. Sadly, we live in such divisive times. The core of my faith is the search and creation of meaning in every moment and in all life, to sanctify life, to bring love to life though my humble humanity. The heart and spirit of Christmas helps me to bring that to life through my frail human being.

The fact that Christmas allows folk to pause and slow down and pay attention is a cause for celebration for me. Isn’t this worthy of decorations, of light, of music, of celebration. Isn’t the selecting and wrapping of gifts a symbol of generosity of the heart. As I once heard said “There is religion in the ribbons and wrapping paper” it is not just secular materialism, there is so much love that goes into the gift giving and selecting. Surely this fills our hearts and reminds us that life is about giving, that these are symboloic of that and that generosity should fuel our days. Isn’t self giving love the core message that was exemplified through the life of Jesus. Isn’t this what we celebrate the birth of. Aren’t these the true Christian values, that so often get lost in ridiculous theological arguments. Isn’t this the gift that humanity is still waiting for, the gift that can still save us all from ourselves. Isn’t this what will bring us back together in these deeply divisive times. My hope is that we take the risk to give birth to this love through our fragile lives. Christmas is a risk you know. As Rexford J. Styzens so beautifully put it.

“Christmas is a risk for us to take. Shall we allow ourselves to be touched by sentiment? Awakened by song and story? Drawn into festivities, when our joy depends upon the goodwill of others? Dare we risk the disappointment of hopes raised high and excited expectations? May we have the courage to celebrate the season fully.”

We need to take that risk. We need to in order to bring that spirit to life. Lets be holy fools and take the risk. Our world needs us to. Don’t we all need to.

Now of course for some of us it feels like too much. It feels like we can’t go through it, or we are just not in the mood for it. Or if you are like me, you just don’t have the time for it. I have to be very careful of the “I haven’t got time for this” mantra. Some times “ho, ho, ho!” is a bit too much for me, as it is for all of us. Sometimes it all seems too much and we are just not ready for it all.

Well, it comes anyway, regardless of us. There again I see something powerfully humbling. It comes even if I’m not ready, if we are not ready, sometimes others carry the burden and bring the spirit to life, even if we do not want it.

Regardless of the state of our hearts, the season of the heart is born again. Symbolised in the birth of the Christ child. We tell the story regardless. As we do we are reminded of his message of universal equality, compassion, forgiveness, and love. This is born over and over again, sometimes in spite of the state of our individual minds and hearts. And isn’t this the real miracle, that we cannot deny the possibility of hope, despite the state of our hearts and lives.

Here in December 2021 in the midst of so many troubles don’t we all need to contemplate the potential for peace and healing in our lives and world. Sometimes it is hard to find, especially in times of literal or metaphorical darkness, like now. Then it comes. It comes as Christmas comes to remind us and it comes in the hearts and lives of those inspired by its spirit. It comes even if we do not want it to come. It comes and it saves us once again, if only from ourselves. It comes even if we do not believe we are worthy of receiving it, gosh we are, if only we believed it. We are all worthy of love, we are all loved as we are, isn’t that what is at the core of the love born in that stable.

We all have our struggles, our various griefs, our pain, our suffering, all of us. Let’s not forget that. Let us also not forget that Christmas reminds us that light was and is born within us, even in the darkest nights of our souls. That this light can be born once again within us.

So let us open the inn door once again, lets prepare the mangers of our hearts, even if we don’t feel up to it, even if we don’t want to believe in it. There is a love waiting to be born in each of us. We need it and our world needs it too.

Please never forget that we are each of us children of love, children of the universe. That in each birth there is this love, even it seems obscured at times. Isn’t Christmas the ultimate reminder of this. To quote Sophia Lyon Fahs “That every night a child is born is a holy night”. That love is waiting to be born in us again. Someone recently suggested that this should read "Each night a child is born is a holy night". Perhaps to be read correctly it should. That said I find something univeral, something about all time in the phrase "every" and I suspectt hat this is what Sophia is getting at.

So let us turn on those twinkling lights, play the songs and sing the carols. Buy those presents and wrap them, invite the strangers in the midst into our lives. Pay attention to the needs in our lives and if we are feeling alone and afraid, let someone know and let their love flow. For you are not alone, even though it can sometimes feel like you are, for we all feel like that some time.

The spirit of Christmas does something to us, there is a magic to it, it is more than reason and fact. It can’t be quantified and it cannot be measured, but it surely can be experienced and known, but only if we let it have its way with us. We just have to risk greeting strangers more openly and warmly.

The magic of Christmas is there in its spirit. For it is this that enables us to open up to our true nature. Christmas is wonderful, powerful and special because it helps us to become more comfortable about being open and giving. Its spirit helps us to give birth to the goodness that is waiting to come to life, within each of us and that is why we love it so much.

So let’s journey on through this Christmas season and truly open our hearts and engage in its spirit. May our hearts open wider, at this the heart of the year. May our experiences deepen as we remember to slow down as we rush through the business of our days. May we know the true gifts of the season; gifts of love, compassion and acceptance. May we bring the spirit of the season alive and in so doing learn to make it Christmas in the days yet to come.

Below is a video devotion based

on the material in this "blogspot"

Mr Scrooge and the Spirit of Christmas

I noticed I was feeling a bit “Bah Humbuggy” the other morning when talking with a friend. They were asking me what I would be doing for Christmas day this year. I am asked this question a lot. At the time I said I kind of want to spend the day quietly and peacefully on my own. I have done so once before, it was important at time in my life. I will not be doing so of course. I am not Mr Scrooge, but like everyone I am capable of being so.

Another friend asked the other day what people’s favourite Christmas horror film was, I think he was being a little “Bah humbuggy” himself. I thought about it and suggested initially “Gremlins” in the end though I decided on Dickens “A Christmas Carol”. Now of course it is really a ghost story, more than a horror one, but hey that is splitting hairs. In this incredible story we see the full spirit of Christmas, the extremes, the many spirits in all of us and of course the possibility of redemption, that the spirit at the heart of Christmas can still transform our lives, if we just open our senses and let it

Dickens, like everyone was a complex character, he had an incredible way of speaking of the heart of his time and like all great story tellers the heart of all time, the universal. He also had a magical way of both naming and describing the characters in his tales. I Love the following description of Scrooge from the second page of “A Christmas Carol”

“Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.”

What an incredible description of this character who is the antithesis of Christmas, who of course becomes its ultimate hero.

“A Christmas Carol” was first published in 1843, it tells the story of the transformation of the mean-spirited Ebenezer Scrooge through the visits of his former business partner Jacob Marley and three other ghosts on Christmas Eve. Earlier that day Scrooge is visited by two benefactors who wish to make provisions for the poor. Scrooge refuses and tells them that prisons and workhouses were the only institutions that he his willing to support and the badly off must go there. When one of the benefactors points out that many can’t go there and would rather die Scrooge goes further with his Malthusian view that the poor, ill and infirm are surplus to the needs of society and that “If they would rather die, they’d better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Sounds shocking I know and yet haven’t we all heard echoes of this in the last couple of years. I certainly have about the weak and the vulnerable at the beginning of the pandemic and once again in recent weeks with regard to refugees who have tried to cross the water to safety too, many who have died trying. Are the lives of such people worth less than those of others? It seems that the spirit of Scrooge is still with us. Thankfully it is not the only spirit alive at this time and at all times.

“A Christmas Carol” was an attack on the social injustices of the time, particularly the indifference of wealthy towards the poor. The introduction of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act took away local parish help for the poor and institutionalized the process with Union workhouses. In return for food and shelter, the poor had to live semi-incarcerated lives in institutions where families were often split apart and made to do menial tasks to earn their keep. Scrooge views the poor and economically inactive, which he calls idle, as a burden to society, better off in a workhouse or even dead.

Scrooge is transformed by the visions that the ghosts show him. He is shown visions of the present, where he sees the impact of poverty on Crachit’s family, particularly his disabled son Tiny Tim who he is warned will die unless his life alters. The ghost repeats Scrooge’s callous remarks back to him “If he be likely to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” This is more graphically shown by the two figures of an emaciated boy and girl, known as “Ignorance” and “Want”. When Scrooge is touched by their plight, the Ghost again uses his words against him, saying to Scrooge “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”

“Want and ignorance” are still with others, as is this attitude that some lives are of less value than others. That said the spirit that transformed Scrooge is also still with us. It is the spirit that is at the heart of the original Christmas mythos of two thousand years and is at the heart of the message exemplified in the life of Jesus. If a heart as frozen as Mr Scrooge’s could be thawed then so can all others.

This to me is the message of the whole Christmas story; this is the message of the universal Christmas “mythos”. This is the religious message of Christmas and the message that the life of Jesus brought to humanity. It is a message that applies as much today as it did then.

Some say that we should not give too much, you will have nothing left. Well such people have not yet learnt the strange arithmetic of giving, which multiplies by subtraction. The more we give from the heart, the more the love increases.

Perhaps this is the spirit that we need to bring to life through our lives this Christmas season and beyond. We are going to need to as we attempt to rebuild once we eventually come through the other side of this pandemic.

The Christmas “Mythos” is that of perfect love incarnating in human form. That love can manifest itself today in our hearts and lives. We all have the capacity for great good, if we would but feed the good wolf within each of us. It is surely here that the hope for the whole of humanity lies. If we feed the loving wolf within us the wolf of hate and fear dies off. If we do we have already begun to spread love and we begin to bring joy to the world.

There is so much that is wrong with our world. Watching the news each night highlights this. “Want and ignorance” are still with us. There is so much that mocks those bells at Christmas time and there does indeed seem to be a deficit of “peace on earth and good will to all.” I do not believe that it has to be like that. We can incarnate that love in our lives and we can begin to spread it out into our world. I do believe in the chaos theory of compassion and hope that you do to.

This brings to my heart the beautiful words of Mr Scrooge toward the end of Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol”

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”

Scrooge became the Christmas hero because he brought the reality of what Christmas is truly about to life; through him the spirit of Christmas came to life. It is the same for everyone, regardless of time and place.

We must do more than that though, we must respond in love and do what we can in this our shared world, as Mr Scrooge did.

This to me is the heart of Christmas, this giving of ourselves in love and service for others. Self-giving love is a love that grows the more that we give it away. A love that is at the core of each and every one of us if we would but nurture it in the mangers of our own hearts and give birth to it in our living and breathing.

This is what Christmas means to me and why as the years have gone by I have come to believe in Christmas more and more. That said, like everyone, I still have my own “Bah Humbug” moments.

I believe in Christmas, the soul of Christmas, the spirit of Christmas, the heart of Christmas the religion of Christmas more today than I ever did at any moment in my life. Today I believe everything about Christmas and a whole lot more than everything that we think we know.

 

As the old song goes “Oh I wish it could be Christmas every day.” Well it can be, but we must give birth to it in our hearts and lives.

Below is a devotion based on the material in this "blog spot"