Glad Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Now to the Lord sing praises,
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
This holy tide of Christmas
All other doth efface.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy.

These are the final words of classic Christmas Carol “God rest ye merry gentlemen”. To me this is the heart, the spirt of Christmas, to offer “Glad tidings of comfort and joy. This is something we all need in life and not just at Christmas. Yes, let us celebrate the joy of this season and let us give comfort to those who are in need, and of course seek it when we need it ourselves. Remember of course that comfort doesn’t necessarily mean what we think it means today. Comfort comes from the Latin word comfortare, which means “strengthen greatly.” To give comfort is to shore up the mood or physical state of someone else. To stand by them and support them. Not take away their human agency, not a there there, but to be with them in their struggle, to support and accompany them.

I was reminded on Tuesday morning of a gift that was left on my doorstep two years ago, something that gave me comfort at a difficult time in my life. It began a practice I have continued every day, ever since. Every morning when I awake, as part of my daily spiritual practice, I reflect on the day before and take note of the little things that have occurred in my life. I then share this with others on social media. It is a way of sharing “glad tidings of comfort and joy”. The other morning, the second anniversary of “The little things”, I was reflecting on an experience of being offered comfort the day before, as I sat and listened to the findings of my friend’s inquest. I was alone, except for a court volunteer, who is there to support friends and family of the deceased. I talked with the woman who shared why she had become such a volunteer, following a tragedy in her own life. She herself had attended the inquest of a relative. She was wonderful and a beautiful example of the good that can grow from tragedy, if we transform it into loving service for others. Surely this is the point of the religious life. She truly was a comforter, although that was not her official title. She strengthened me greatly as did my God and two or three friends who I was in contact with. I had to experience what I did, but I was comforted through it. I felt held and strengthened as I walked through what I felt I must. A little later I spent some time in the joyful company of a friend, this also brought glad tidings too.

“Oh glad tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Oh glad tidings of comfort and joy.”

This truly is the spirit of Christmas, past, present and future, alive and well in this our world.

How do we bring glad tidings of comfort and joy to the world, especially if we ourselves are feeing a little weary. How do we Unitarians, those of a free religious tradition offer “Glad tidings of comfort and joy”?

Well, it is there in our past, our present and our believe our future. Our is a hope filled faith, one that believes in possibility and potential of all life, all people that on earth do dwell. Our approach to religion is real, grounded in this life. That we sanctify in and through this life. That the likes of Priestley and our forebears, in rejecting “Original Sin”, and thus the need to be saved from ourselves, embraced the humanness of Jesus and this life, the sacredness of this life, and as I would see it, that we are here to sanctify in and through life. Jesus was thus seen as the example of what we could be. That redemption can come not by saving us from life, but to life. Yes, redemption is available, but not by pure unearned Grace, rather through a combination of faith and works, thus maintaining human agency.

Now this brings to my heart one of the Christmas classic tales, Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”

In the story Scrooge beautifully portrays the power at the heart of Christmas, how love can redeem even the most lost. It emerges through the journey of integration that he is taken on, of the past, present and future; of both the light and the dark of life; of hope and despair. During the telling of “A Christmas Carol” he was visited by three spirits, the ghosts of the past, present and yet to be.

“The Ghost of Christmas Past” forced him to not only look back at his past but to relive it, to truly feel it. He was made to remember what Christmas had once meant, before cynicism had taken hold. It showed him both the happiness and the sadness present in his past, there was no sugar coating. It is of course a true humbug to pretend that all the sadness in life is washed away at Christmas time. And yet while there is sadness present in all life there is also love and joy, there is much to be grateful for. It is the “The Ghost of Christmas Past” that revealed this to Scrooge.

“The Ghost of Christmas Present” showed Scrooge the full picture of the world in which he lived, especially at Christmas time. He saw the warts and the beauty spots too. It revealed the affluence as well as the want. It showed Christmas being enjoyed in far off places, on the high seas in lighthouses, it showed every heart being warmed by the season. This surely touched Scrooge, as his heart was warmed by the universal love, present in all life, regardless of material circumstances, expressed by the spirit of Christmas.

“The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be” brought the reality of Scrooge’s own lonely and un-mourned death to him. People either did not care or actually cheered his passing. All that he owned was quickly stripped from him; it meant nothing in the end. They even took the curtains from his bed. When the spirit showed him his grave, he did not recognise it as his own, he tried to deny it, but the spirits finger pointed from the grave back to him. This terrified Scrooge who cried out that he was a changed man, as he begged for mercy clutching the spirits robe. And then from his lips came those immortal words, “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 will strive within me. I will not shut out the lesson that they teach.”

Scrooge became the Christmas hero because he brought the reality of what Christmas is all about to life; through him the spirit of Christmas came to life. It is the same for everyone, regardless of time and place. For surely Christmas is about honouring life in its wholeness; surely it is about reconciliation in its completeness. It is about giving birth to the love within each of by reconciling our past in our present and therefore creating a future inspired by love.

Scrooge is transformed not be unearned Grace, but by integrating his whole life. He is shown his story of what is was and what he will become. He awakens transformed, he undergoes a conversion experience but does not lose his agency. The ghosts are his comforter as they accompany him through this journey and becomes the man he could be, dedicating his life to something new.

There are parallels here to another Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life”. The main character here George Bailey is not in any way Scrooge like. He has lived a life of service in so many ways. Yet it all goes wrong, despite the good he does, through no fault of his own. He loses his mind and in his desperation decides that the best thing for all is to take his life. In the film an angel “Clarence Oddbody” is sent to save him, in order to gain his wings. George believes all would be better if he had never been born. Clarence takes him on journey showing him how life would be if had never been born. Having being shown this vision of his life he begs for his life back and returns home to accept his fate. On his return he finds all the towns folk had chipped in to help him and redemption occurs. Can you see how clearly everyone here becomes the comforter, those who offer glad tidings of comfort and joy as George had been doing for years. They exemplify the message at the heart of Christmas, I believe.

These stories remind me of another classic piece of literature, not a Christmas story, but one that has similarities at its heart and soul. This is “Silas Marner” by George Eliot (real name Mary Ann Evans) who like Dickens was heavily influenced by Unitarian thought. The novel explored themes of faith, redemption and the healing power of love. Silas Marner loses his faith in both God, humanity and society through a series of unfortunate events, but is transformed through his relationship with the orphan girl Eppie who is left with him and who he adopts. Like Scrooge’s heart, his is transformed and thawed, through love. The novel beautifully portrays the power of love and human connection. Isn’t this another example of the heart of the Christmas story. Interestingly in this story it is Eppie who is the comforter, who brings to life “Glad tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy, oh glad tidings of comfort and joy.”

Christmas is about possibility, it is about hope of what might be. It is about love being born, being incarnated in our hearts and minds. It is about possibility. It’s about bringing glad tidings of comfort and joy. The Christ child is the example to us all of what we can be if we live from that spirit of love. We all have the same hope, the possibility in us. We are all Scrooge, we are all Silas Marner, we are all George Bailey. Just as we are all the Ghosts of the past, present and what is yet to be, just as we are all Clarence Oddbody and little Eppie and all the other characters in this and countless other tales. These are real tales, tales of life. That love can come again, can be born again. We must incarnate it though our own lives. We must be the comforter and when we need it to accept what is offered, as I did again this week. We are here to accompany one another in our joy and suffering as we integrate the whole of our lives past present and future.

The it might just be Christmas every day. Or as good old Mr Scrooge said, towards the end of 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!”

Let us honour that spirit too. Let us offer “Glad Tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy, glad tidings of comfort and joy.”

The video devotion below is based on the material in this "blogspot"

Groundhog Day: A Perfect Allegory of the Spiritual Journey

So here we stand at the beginning of another year. We have passed through the cycle of life, one more time. Much is as it was and some things have changed. Mostly though is very much as it was, as it always is. This the journey that is life. The truth is we don’t actually go anywhere, we just move around the circle of life. That said we get the greatest gift of all. We get life. We get to journey on, experiencing life in all its beauty and sometimes horror. We get to live the spiritual journey too, which of course is not a journey of distance, but of experience, dare I say depth.

As good old Wendell Berry so beautifully put it

“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.”

This is the mythos that the great stories all seem to tell. Just think of Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” after her great adventure she learned to be at home in Kansas. She needed the adventure in order to truly understand the treasure she already possessed. She had to go on the journey of change and then return home with treasure to share.

No doubt we have been repeating some similar rituals and practices these last few days as we have once again celebrated Christmas. Much will have been the same, but some things will have been different. Maybe they have been experienced differently. Eistein famously said that insanity is repeating the same behaviour and expecting a different result. There is truth in this wisdom, but not the whole truth. For actual in some ways this is what the spiritual life, the life of faith is actually about. It is in the repetition of the same activity that change happens, sometimes unexpectedly. So yes Eistein is right, it is the definition of insanity, but also of hope.

I spend a lot of my life wandering around Altrincham, bumping into people and passing others in the street. Often seeing the same people in the same places and often have similar conversations. This is the beautiful gift of the ordinary, sometimes it reveals pots of gold. Now some might think this dull, but it is not. Yes it is “Groundhog Day”, but this is a beautiful thing, it is not in the least bit negative.

I watched the film “Groundhog Day” the other day. It is a favourite of mine. It is set in the deepest dark of winter. I am speaking of it a little early, for “Groundhog Day” is not until the 2nd of February, not that it is something that we mark in Britain. Here, depending on our spiritual tradition we may well mark Candlemass, Imbolc or St Brigid’s Day.

Groundhog Day began as a pagan festival. It falls in the dead of winter, flanked equally on either side by the winter solstice and the spring equinox. According to folklore if the groundhog sees his shadow on this day there will be six more weeks of snow. So, the hope is that he does not see his shadow and that winter will soon be over.

It is not the legend of Groundhog Day that really interests me, more the film that bares the same name. It is one of my favourites and may well be one of the most spiritual ever made. That sounds like quite a bold statement for what is, on the surface at least, a Hollywood romantic comedy.

“Groundhog Day” is a tale of hope, of the possibility of transformation. That by somehow repeating the same day over and over again, somehow in this process change occurs, different results do in fact come. It tells the story of a self centred weatherman named Phil. At the beginning of the film he is sent on his annual excursion to Punxsutawney Pennsylvania, to record the thrilling moment when Phil the Groundhog makes his annual winter trek into sunlight in search of the shadowy predictor for the coming weeks. Phil ( the weatherman) hates the fact that he has to be there and treats everyone he meets in “the hick town”, with disdain. The film crew cannot get out of the town as the weather takes a turn for the worst. So, they have to spend another night in the town

Phil awakens the next morning to the same song he heard the morning before “I Got you Babe” by Sonny and Cher, he is to awaken to this every morning as “Groundhog Day” is repeated over and over again for days, weeks, months, years. Every day is the second of February; every day is the same day; every day he is offered the opportunity to experience that same Groundhog Day over and over again, running into the same people, having the same encounters. And yet within those very same limitations he is offered infinite choices. Where he can eat, how he can respond to each encounter, who he can hurt and who he can help. He is offered the opportunity to grow and to change every single day; he is offered the opportunity to become the man he wants to be, every single day. He can be the bad guy or the good guy, the funny guy, the happy guy, the free guy or the trapped guy, the suicidal guy. He is offered the chance to change which he begins to do, as he learns from his mistakes. He learns that he cannot control all that is going on around him and that happiness can only be found by truly living in what is there, the sacred moment. His inspiration is his producer Rita (played by Andie Mcdowell) she is the opposite of Phil, good hearted and at peace with herself. Phil falls in love with who Rita is, he awakens to the longing to be a person worthy of her love and he begins to allow himself to be that person. Each day is repeated and in the end he gets very subtly different results.

Now isn’t this one of those universal messages found within the mythos’ of the great faiths. That love can transform even the most self centred of hearts that we can all aspire to be the best that we can be. That hope can be found in total despair and that you do not need to seek some special place, it is found in the ordinary everyday things of life.

So could it be that this Hollywood Romantic comedy is the most “spiritual” ever made. Well Harold Ramis the films co-writer and director said that religious leaders and writers continually contacted him over the years claiming that “Groundhog Day” is an allegory of their traditions key messages. Buddhist have claimed that it illustrates their notion of Samsara, the continuing cycle of re-birth. Phil (The weatherman) is seen as the Bohisattva who keeps on being sent back into the world in order to save it, he never seems to reach enlightenment and has to keep on going through the daily trials in order to help others.

Jewish observers have noted that Phil keeps on being sent back into the world to perform Mitzvah’s (good deeds). The story is not really about his individual salvation and more about perfecting the whole world.

Still others have claimed Christian and Pagan interpretations. It has been suggested that the groundhog symbolises re-birth and the hope of renewal at Easter or spring. It is worth remembering that the 2nd of February is Imbolc and Candlemass, key festivals in both traditions. The story is also a classic redemption tale, very much like a Christmas Carol. Phil the weatherman is just another Mr Scrooge. Infact Bill Murray himself once played a modern day version in the film “Scrooged”.

Groundhog Day is a favourite film of mine, if you haven’t seen it I heartily recommend it to you it will warm you through on a cold winters night. It is a film about hope; it is a film about the possibility of change and transformation. That by repeating the same ordinary activities, we can grow and change. Now I know some call this insanity, but I prefer to call it hope; hope in the possibility of change.

I am going to leave the last words to Bill Murray’s character Phil. Words he eventually said while signing off at the end of his final broadcast. Words of hope, of what might be. Words uttered not knowing that the next morning everything would change, for finally Groundhog Day had ended, it was February the 3rd.

Phil said: “When Chechov saw the long winter, it was a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope; and yet we know winter’s only one more step in the cycle. And standing among the people of Punxsutawney basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.

Below is a video devotion based on the material in this "Blogspot"

Our Rituals of Christmas Time: Personal, Universal and Timeless

The last two years have made it difficult for many of us to engage in many of our usual Christmas time rituals. The pandemic meant that we could not socially mix as we normally would. We had to find new ways to be more creative. As is the human way, we often did. I suspect we always have. The spirit always finds a way to bring light, to bring hope, when hope is hard to find. Even this year has felt a little strange with the football World Cup taking place as we engage in our usual get togethers. So yes Christmas has been different these last few years, but I know that its spirits burns just as bright as ever. It has certainly felt this way for these last few days. I know Christmas will once again be different for me this year, it feels good though.

Christmas means different things to each and every one of us. Do you know what, it always has. People often cry that it’s not what it used to be. Well do you know what it used to be many years ago is not what it used to be many years before then. Christmas, like everything is always in flux, nothing ever stays the same, this is the nature of reality.

Now despite the ever changing rituals and celebrations there does appear to be a universal spirit that has always existed. Do you know what the spirit has existed longer than the Christmas story and stories. Christmas is the ultimate Universal mythos of the heart.

Now while myths may not be be real, they are certainly true. Myth," said the Greek statesman Solon, “is not about something that never happened. It is about something that happens over and over again.”

So we keep on telling these stories over and over again, adding to the cannon. Why? Well be cause they keep on happening over and over again.

For many people Christmas is a time of love and compassion of bringing to the surface our better selves. For others it is about family (however we understand family) coming together. For some it is about God’s Love incarnating perfectly in life, in the Christ child. For others it is the celebration of the end of winter and the coming of life and renewal in the spring time. I think it is all of this and a whole lot more. It seems to me that Christmas is the ultimate universal festival of the heart. It is a mixture of so many traditions and it has altered so much over time, embracing and incorporating so much of this simple spirit of light and love. Christmas is the ultimate festival of the heart, perfectly placed in the deep mid-winter when we need it the most.

As the years go by the meaning of Christmas has changed for me, as the meaning of life has. I suspect it means more to me today than it has ever done. Every year this meaning grows. Christmas is not just another day to me, in fact it has truly become a season, the season of the heart come to life. Religiously it means more to me too. As time as gone by I have connected increasingly to the many and varied rituals of Christmas. Ok some may see these rituals as secular, but I am not convinced. I see the spirit at the heart of Christmas incarnating in all of them.

I love Christmas, I truly do. I love it because it fills my heart with nostalgia, generosity and goodwill, it connects me to life, to God and to the people around me, it connects me to the past, to my ancestors and to those who touched my life, many who are no longer here. I shed many tears around this time of year. It happened three times on Tuesday, the first as I was pushing and pulling weights in the gym, not a place for tears really. The other two times as I read and received messages of thanks for this work I do, how it filled my heart with thanksgiving. All this allows me to feel more alive. It opens up the present, the ultimate gift of life. The spiritual life is not about passively living in the moment, but truly bringing the moment to life.

Christmas is the heart of the year. Christmas is about Kairos time, not Chronos time. Time slows and our experiences thicken, if we allow them to. If we open our hearts truly to the spirit at work in the experiences. If we open our hearts to one another our relationships will deepen. What is more religious than this? For me to be religious is to increase our connection and to be spiritual is to increase our sensitivity, our experience of life.

An example of this are the many rituals that we all engage in each and every year. Such as going to buy a new tree, or fetching the artificial one from where ever we store it in the house. Getting out the decorations and placing them around the home. Myself and Molly had a lovely time chatting with Frank, Aled and Nick as they finished putting up the tree in the chapel gardens at Dunham Road. Molly loves Christmas trees, or should I say she loves stealing baubles from them.

For so many people simple rituals like putting up and decorating the tree connects us to our past and those who have touched our lives. There are so many memories tied up in these rituals. The memories will be mixed, as life is mixed, to misquote good old Moses “The blessings and curses of choosing life”. How many of us laugh and cry as we engage with these rituals and of course pass on the memories, rebind them, bring them to life, remember, reincarnate them. Isn’t this love re-incarnated. Yes, there is religion in the ribbons, but also in the baubles and tinsels. These memories are not always happy and there will always be tears, but no doubt in some way they connect us to those “Glad tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy, glad tidings of comfort and joy.

Then of course there is the music, whether that be carols and carol singing or the many and numerous pop songs and classic songs from the old movies. For every service during in December you all insist on only singing carols and I’m with you all the way here by the way. The pop songs are no less religious, no less spiritual to me. They connect me to my past and those I’ve heard and sung these songs with and they help bring the moment more fully alive. They increase my experience of life too, they open my heart, they incarnate love. A taste of heaven.

I had an experience with this last Saturday night as I reengaged with a love that has been with me all my life. I went on a congregational outing with Rob, Helen and Nick from Dunham Road. We went to see my great musical love, New Model Army. It was a great night, they were on fine form. It was a truly religious experience and one so many have missed engaging in. They have for years played a mini tour around Christmas time.

Then of course there are the films, those great Christmas stories. For so many of us this is the heart of Christmas. What is your favourite? What film is at the heart of Christmas for you? They may appear to be secular, at least on the surface, but I bet you that they have within the same universal Christmas Mythos going on, that is at the heart of the Christmas story.

All these rituals to me are deeply religious and spiritual also. They connect us to one another, to life, that spirit at the heart of life, they connect us to our past and those who have touched our lives and they bring the gift of Christmas to life, the ultimate gift of Christmas, the present, the Christmas present. It truly increases our sensitivity to life itself.

Another universal quality is the journeying of Christmas. There is of course chronos journey through the Advent season as we open our Advent Calendars and count down the days. There are the journeys to buy the gifts for loved ones, there is the journey to events and parties. There is the journey home also. Journeying is of course at the heart of the Christmas mythos. Whether that is the journey of the Holy Family of Joseph and Mary, carrying the Christ child in her womb on the road to Bethlehem, of the refusal to be accepted, of the magical birth and adorations and then of course having to flee for their lives, a journey we can all relate to in so many ways. Journey’s people have been travelling on for generations. Then of course there is the journey of the Magi, the wisemen, who were called out to cross many lands in order to follow their bliss and bring gifts of love to the beloved.

These are journey’s of distance. But also journeys of depth. They are both chronos and Kairos journeys. I will be doing some journeying over the next few weeks. As I am sure you will all be doing so too. They will be journey’s of hope and of sorrow, of joy and laughter and some pain. They will be religious journey’s and spiritual journey’s, journeys of the heart. Journey’s that will increase our sensitivity to life and deepen our connections to one another, to life, to our past, our present and the future. It will open our hearts and in so doing incarnate love here in our lives.

It will help me follow in the great tradition of Mr Scrooge and his famous words at the end of “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.”

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.

Oh I wish it could be Christmas every day, well it can be if we make it so, if we bring it to life through our humble human being.

Below is a video devotion based

 on the material in this blogspot

 

Bringing Christmas Alive: Past. Present and Future

Last weekend I was consumed by a deep and heavy cold. I’m sure I wasn’t the best company and was probably wasn’t entirely in the Christmas spirit. I hope I wasn’t too Scrooge like. On Saturday night I did witness a beautiful joyful annual ritual. As I sat in the chair, feeling somewhat sorry for myself, I watched Sue and her daughter Lucy put their Christmas tree up and take out the many decorations. Everyone seemed to have a story, some had even belonged to Sue’s grandma, and others were her mothers, several more had been collected as her own children had grown up. I thought how lovely it was to connect those decorations to at least three generations. I wondered to myself if Lucy would keep up this tradition when she begins to create a family of her own, I suspect that she will.

I find it lovely how this simple annual ritual has an ability to connect the present with the past and the future, those three vital spirits of Christmas. Each telling its own story and each coming to life at the same time.

It brought me back to the quotation that I had ended last weeks "blogspot" with. Those 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!”

In the story Scrooge beautifully portrays the power at the heart of Christmas, how love can redeem even the most lost. It emerges through the journey of integration that he is taken on, of the past, present and future; of both the light and the dark of life; of hope and despair. During the telling of “A Christmas Carol” he was visited by three spirits, the ghosts of the past, present and yet to be.

“The Ghost of Christmas Past” forced him to not only look back at his past but to relive it, to truly feel it. He was made to remember what Christmas had once meant, before cynicism had taken hold. It showed him both the happiness and the sadness present in his past, there was no sugar coating. It is of course a true humbug to pretend that all the sadness in life is washed away at Christmas time. And yet while there is sadness present in all life there is also love and joy, there is much to be grateful for. It is the “The Ghost of Christmas Past” that revealed this to Scrooge.

As I recall the past Christmases I have known there is much joy, but there is also deep sadness too. This is life. I am at peace with my past these days as I feel it is truly a part of me. I feel these former ghosts, that once haunted me, are now fully integrated deep in the soul of my being. Those ghosts are a part of me.

“The Ghost of Christmas Present” showed Scrooge the full picture of the world in which he lived, especially at Christmas time. He saw the warts and the beauty spots too. It revealed the affluence as well as the want. It showed Christmas being enjoyed in far off places, on the high seas in lighthouses, it showed every heart being warmed by the season. This surely touched Scrooge, as his heart was warmed by the universal love, present in all life, regardless of material circumstances, expressed by the spirit of Christmas.

It is vital that we see the world truly with the awakened eye. To see life as it actually is, for the awakened eye is a compassionate eye. The world in which we live today is as mixed as the world of Dickens. We see poverty and want everywhere. Homelessness is a terrible blight of our time. Did you know that there are as many foodbanks in this country as McDonald’s restaurants? A terrible statistic don’t you think. And yet this isn’t the whole picture, there is a great deal of joy in coming together, often shown in times of trouble, people coming together in love, people helping and offering service to one another in a variety of ways,

“The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be” brought the reality of Scrooge’s own lonely and un-mourned death to him. People either did not care or actually cheered his passing. All that he owned was quickly stripped from him; it meant nothing in the end. They even took the curtains from his bed. When the spirit showed him his grave, he did not recognise it as his own, he tried to deny it, but the spirits finger pointed from the grave back to him. This terrified Scrooge who cried out that he was a changed man, as he begged for mercy clutching the spirits robe. And then from his lips came those immortal words, “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 will strive within me. I will not shut out the lesson that they teach.”

Scrooge became the Christmas hero because he brought the reality of what Christmas is all about to life; through him the spirit of Christmas came to life. It is the same for everyone, regardless of time and place. For surely Christmas is about honouring life in its wholeness; surely it is about reconciliation in its completeness. It is about giving birth to the love within each of by reconciling our past in our present and therefore creating a future inspired by love.

We are told that to truly live we must live in the moment. Now while I am not going to contradict this,but I do not think that this is not enough. I have come believe that the key to truly living alive is that rather than simply passively living in the moment, we must bring the present alive, by integrating our whole lives, past, present and future.

Christmas is about the past, present and future integrated as one. This is the love we must give birth to on Christmas morning, born in mangers of our hearts.

To truly bring the moment to life requires each of us to integrate the whole of our lives. This is especially true at Christmas time, in fact this is the beautiful Christmas paradox.

This all got me thinking about this great paradox of Christmas, it is found right at the core of the season. At Christmas we celebrate newness and rebirth and yet at the same time we revere tradition more than at any other time of year perhaps. Just think of all the traditions that you feel you must engage in just to make it Christmas. Christmas is a beautiful mix of the old and the new, inseparably intertwined in one gift-wrapped package, ready for us to open and enjoy. Christmas is newness, first and foremost, a celebration of birth and rebirth. It is a season of preparing, of focusing all that is within us on making ready the birthplace of the Christ child within the mangers of our own hearts. Isn’t this what happened to Mr Scrooge, thus heralding a new future.

Every Christmas is a chance to integrate the whole of our lives. We recreate our pasts through traditions. We hear and sing again the same carols, they stir something deep within us. How many of us engage in the same ritual that Sue and Lucy did, tenderly and lovingly unpacking and displaying cherished decorations. Don’t they bring to mind former days, former joys and sad memories too, especially as we remember lost loved ones. What about the cards that we write and send, posting greetings to distant and not-so-distant friends and loved ones, remembering all those who make up our network of mutual love. Even the most secular amongst us participate in ceremonies, keeping alive the traditions of Christmas that are so rich and meaningful in this season.

Christmas is a beautiful blend of the old and the new. We need the old to truly give birth to the new, it is a part of who we are. In order to give birth to the love waiting in the mangers of our hearts, this Advent season. Advent is about waiting to give birth to this love. How do we do this, well by following the lead of Mt Scrooge, by simply integrating the past, the present and the future.

In so doing we will give birth to that love during the moment of magic on Christmas morning.

Here is my favourite adaptation of a "Christmas Carol"

Happy Christmas: Seasonal Inspiration 4

Happy Christmas to you all...I wish you a wonderful and a wonder filled time...

As my little gift to you and whoever else may stumble across this I thought I'd put together one final collection of inspirational readings I've come across this advent season...I will begin with the following which I was recently invited to share at the Altrincham Court Leet Carol Service

"A Christmas Prayer" by Maureen Killoran

Not gold, nor myrrh, nor even frankincense
would I have for you this season,
but simple gifts, the ones that are hardest to find,
the ones that are perfect,
even for those who have everything (if such there be).

I would (if I could)
have for you the gift of courage,
the strength to face the gauntlets
only you can name,
and the firmness in your heart to know
that you (yes, you!) can be a bearer of the quiet dignity
that is the human glorified.

I would (if by my intention I could make it happen)
have for you the gift of connection,
the sense of standing on the hinge of time,
touching past and future
standing with certainty that you (yes, you!)
are the point where it all comes together.

I would (if wishing could make it so)
have for you the gift of community,
a nucleus of love and challenge,
to convince you in your soul
that you (yes, you!) are a source of light
in a world too long believing in the dark.

Not gold, nor myrrh, nor even frankincense,
would I have for you this season,
but simple gifts, the ones that are hardest to find,
the ones that are perfect,
even for those who have everything (if such there be).


The second is another prayerful peace by Howard Thurman. To find out more about this great man please click here Howard thurman

“I Place My Gifts” by Howard Thurman

I place my gifts on my altar this Christmas:
Gifts that are mine, as the years are mine.

The quiet hopes that flood the earnest cargo of my dreams
The best of all good things for those I love.

A fresh new trust for all whose faith is dim.
The love of life, a most precious gift in reach of us all:
Seeing in the acts of each day, the seeds of tomorrow.

Finding in the struggle, the strength for renewal,
Seeking in each person, the face of kinship.

I place these gifts on my altar this Christmas
Gifts that are mine, as the years are mine….

Amidst all of its whirl and activity, may this Christmas bring you To your heart’s altar; there to receive a sustaining grace; the gifts of renewal and healing, the gift of stillness, and peace …
Before you set out again to follow your star….


This piece was posted to facebook by my colleague Rev Sue Woolley. It was originally conceived by another colleague Rev Liz Birtles and was rewritten by our late colleague Rev Simon John Barlow, a much loved minister, but someone I sadly never knew personally.

"A Manger of the Heart" Inspired by Rev. Elizabeth Birtles, rewritten by Rev. Simon John Barlow

Prepare the way to welcome your inner child,
The being of love and light,
The spark of holiness that lies deep in us all.

Seek signs of hope and promise in your life
And the world around you;
The stars that point the way to the Light of God.
Make your way to the sanctuary of peace and acceptance
In the depths of your secret heart.

Prepare a manger in your heart,
Built with the wood of your life:
Your body, your home, your physical comforts.
Line it with the straw of your life:
Your friendships, your memories,
Your harvest of sweet and bitter remembrances.

Bring your life’s gifts to your inner child;
Your contentments, your thankfulness,
Your hopes, your expectations of growth.
Surround your manger with your joys,
Your loves, with those you know and have known,
With the Light of Lights.

Commit yourself to nurture your inner holiness,
To seek joy wherever it may be found;
To give and receive love every moment of life;
To keep to the paths of beauty, truth and love.

Remember that here in the manger of the heart
Is perpetual light, the comfort of true peace,
And the delight of universal serenity.
When you return to the bustle of the world,
Remember your inner holiness in all that you do,
And greet the holiness in all those you meet.

The next three pieces are all taken from "Celebrating Christmas: An Anthology" edited by Carl Seaburg

“Christmas Wants” by W. Waldemar W. Argow

What do you want for Christmas? Of a truth, the answer to precious few questions serves so completely as a clue to the mystery of the human heart. At other times of the year we may dissemble and make-believe, but at Christmas our true nature reveals itself and we act from the hidden motives that dominate our lives.

Come with me this blessed Yuletide season and let the heart confess those wishes it has ever longed for, but never dared express. Aye, what is it we truly want?

I want a few faithful friends who understand my loneliness and who make it less, not by what they say but simply by what they are.

I want a growing capacity to appreciate and respond to the uncomplaining suffering of others, knowing that they fight as hard a battle against odds as ever I do.

I want a mind unafraid to travel, though the trail is not blazed, and a heart willing to trust, even when faith seems the most unreasonable of efforts.

I want a sense of duty tempered with compassion; a conception of work as a privilege; an instinct for justice tempered with mercy; and a feeling that responsibility is my debt for the opportunity of living in a day when great ends are at stake.

I want tasks to do that have abiding value, that make my life a lot better and the world a little brighter.

I want a sense of humor, including a sense to laugh much, often at myself; the grace to forgive and the humility to be forgiven; the willingness to praise and the capacity to respond to greatness and glory.

I want a glimpse of verdant hillsides, the never-resting sea, the horizon-seeking plains and the sound of a bird lifting my spirit higher than any bird can fly.

I want a few wistful moments of quiet amidst the raucous noises and feverish fret of the day, and when twilight descends like a benediction I want a sense of an abiding and eternal reality whose other name is God.



THE OTHER LETTER TO VIRGINIA By Richard M Woodman

Dear Virginia

You knew all along that there was a Santa Claus. Santa as a phantom of your delight sparkled with truth from your very first encounter with life. You were born to a community of care and concern. A place was made for you. Your needs were provided. The world welcomed you and accepted you with the certainty that all life leaves on the mark of its renewal. This acceptance, in its way, is another name for love. Santa’s other name is love too.

What you should know, what you need to know is that there is a Scrooge. Scrooge wears many masks, and in the long days of your becoming, you will find him many times. You must know who he is. Unless you know the masks of Scrooge, unless you know his meaning and can learn to greet him at a proper distance, you too can be such as he! You might become a Scrooge.

The Scrooge of fiction is a familiar character of Christmas telling. To cheer and bright greetings, he has but one reply - ‘Bah humbug!’. He keeps his accountant, Bob Cratchit, on a miserly dole. He counted out the coal lumps for the feeble heating stove. His vision of life, and its purpose followed a miserable narrow track - indeed life had no joy and grinding

toil was meat enough for any person. Neither did he spare himself.

To be sure, as his tale of Christmas unfolds, he has menacing dreams and frightening visions. He awakened a changed and reformed man. But the Scrooge that lives amongst us, still awaits the healing of visions and dreams.

I pray that you will recognise the masks of Scrooge. His is the mask of cynicism. He feeds on the sorrow of unrealised dreams and ever seeks to remind you that there is no profit in dreaming; that dreams and expectations of better things, or a better you, are foolish fantasy. Reality is hard and unrelenting.

Scrooge wears the mask called despair. The frowns of the cynic are graven more deeply. They never give way to smiles. This mask mocks you with the certainty that everything good will be worse. The motto on the portals of Dante’s Inferno is appropriated for the living: ‘All hope abandon, ye who enter here’

Scrooge wears blinkers. This mask is a curtain that keeps you from looking out to the company of others on life’s journey. Blinkers that keep your purposes narrow, make all dreams private property and deny you the thrill of community achievement and the sharing in another’s joy.

Scrooge wears a mirror. This mirror is a mask that tells you that you alone are of value. Purposes end with the fulfilling of yourself. The whole world is your own reflection. The selfish solitary concern of your whole life is your own well-being.

These words about Scrooge are a warning of the perilous. You need realistic hopes and not just idle dreams. Keep your eyes open. Polish up your stars and visions, but please keep a sharp eye open for Scrooge - that he you not become.


“To Live a Life – Not Merely a Season” by John Haynes Holmes


The wonderful thing about Christmas is that it fulfils all our dreams. It suspends our indifference and selfishness and fears and hates, and makes us for an instant spiritually kin. No one must be hungry or homeless on this day, no child forlorn, no heart forsaken, no race despised, no nation outlawed.


Christmas is the demonstration that no hope is vain, that the highest vision may be made real. It is as tho a spell were cast upon us, to save us...from our cruelties and lusts and make us ministers of love. The spell is fleeting – it passes quickly! But this means not at all that it is an illusion but that, real for this one day, it may be caught by the spiritual conjuration of our hearts and made real forever.

This our task – to seize and hold and perpetuate the Christmastide! To live a life, and not merely a single day or a season, which is delivered by prejudice and pride, hostility and hate, and committed to understanding and compassion, and good will! Then there will be no more Christian and pagan, Jew and gentile, black and white, native and alien, or any division – but only the human family, one as God is one, and heirs of that promise.


The following is by Maya Angelou. The find out more please click on the following link Maya Angelou

“Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem" by Dr. Maya Angelou

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.

Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.

We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?

Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.

It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.

Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.

In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.

We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.

We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.

Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.

It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.

On this platform of peace, we can create a language
To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
All the earth's tribes loosen their voices
To celebrate the promise of Peace.

We, Angels and Mortal's, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.

Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.”

― Maya Angelou

The following is an extract from "Love and Death: My Journey Through The Valley Of The Shadow" by the late great Forrest Church, which he wrote as he was dying of Oesophageal cancer.

A Closing Prayer

Christmas Eve, December 24, 2007

On this night of nights,
We have more for which to be grateful than we will ever know:
More cause to bless and cherish
And bend our knee in wonder,
More call to lift our hearts on wings of praise.

For we, too, on this very night,
Illuminated by a story and a star,
Can witness a miracle:
A birth — heralding our birth,
Pregnant with promise and oh so surpassingly strange;
A life — no less magical than ours;
A death — to charge our days with purpose,
Helping us to live in such a way
That our lives, too, will prove worth dying for.

To enter the realm of enchantment,
We must first shed our self-protective cover,
Not, as we too often and so sadly do,
Take this precious life for granted,
But unwrap the present and receive the gift,
Mysterious and charged with saving grace.

So let us, on this night of nights, set aside our shopping list of grievances,
Resist the nattering of our grubby little egos,
And crack our parched lives open like a seed.

Let us pray.

Let us awaken from the soul-crushing allures
Of sophisticated resignation and cynical chic,
To savor instead the world of abundance and possibility
That awaits just beyond the self-imposed limits of our imagination.

Let us awaken to the saving gift of forgiveness,
Where we can, in a single breath, free ourselves and free another.

Let us awaken to the possibility of love,
Body, mind, and spirit,
All-saving and all-redeeming love.

Let us awaken to the blessing of acceptance,
Expressed in a simple, saving mantra:
Want what we have; do what we can; be who we are.

Rather than let wishful thinking or regret
Displace the gratitude for all that is ours, here and now,
To savor and to save.

Let us want what we have —
Praying for health, if we are blessed with health,
For friendship, if we are blessed with friends,
For family, if we are blessed with family,
For work, if we are blessed with tasks that await our doing,
And if our lives are dark, may we remember to want nothing more than the loving
Affection of those whose hearts are broken by
our pain.

Let us do what we can —
Not dream impossible dreams or climb every mountain,
But dream one possible dream and climb one splendid mountain,
That our life may be blessed with attainable meaning.

And let us be who we are —
Embrace our God-given nature and talents.
Answer the call that is ours, not another's,
Thereby enhancing our little world and the greater world we share.

That is my Christmas prayer,
Call it thoughtful wishing.
All we have to do is put our heart in it.
And there's one more bonus.
Unlike wishful thinking, thoughtful wishes always come true.

Amen. I love you. And may God bless us all.

Finally a little bit more of Howard Thurman

When the song of angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the king and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among the brothers,
To make music in the heart. (Howard Thurman)

Let us go out into the world and let us carry the spirit of Christmas into all that we feel and all that we think and all that we say and all that we do.


May God go with us all.


Amen

Searching for the Heart of Christmas

We are well and truly into Advent now, well into the festival of light at this the darkest time of the year. How are you doing? Are you in the spirit of the season or are you struggling a little. It can be a difficult time for some folk in so many ways. It’s just so easy to get lost in so many different things. So much so that we fail to fully experience what this time is all about. We all have a bit of Scrooge within us do we not, we all have a little bit of “Bah Humbug”.

I've been thinking these last few days what exactly Christmas is all about, what is at its heart? What is the spirit of Christmas we hear so much about? I've been asking other people too and have heard some interesting views I've also had a look at what is has meant in the past too. It has not been celebrated in the same way over the years. Some of the things people complain about it today have always been present. This blogspot is an attempt to just explore what Christmas is about, what is at its heart? What is the heart of Christmas?

A friend of mine says that Christmas is a time of love and compassion of bringing to the surface our better selves. For many it is about family (however that is understood) coming together. For some it is about God’s Love incarnating perfectly in life, in the Christ child. For others it is the celebration of the end of winter and the coming of life and renewal in the spring time. I think it is all of this and a whole lot more. It seems to me that Christmas is the ultimate universal festival of the heart. It is a mixture of so many traditions and it has altered so much over time, embracing and incorporating so much of this simple spirit of light and love. Christmas is the ultimate festival of the heart, perfectly placed in the deep mid winter when we need it the most.

That said the very fact that it is a festival of the heart causes difficulty for some, if not all of us. Christmas is difficult for everyone in one way or another. Some places of worship offer what are called “Blue Christmas” services. These were begun for those who had suffered losses during the year to remember their loved ones, but this has now extended to include all who find this time of year difficult. Feelings such as grief and suffering are felt more intensely at this time of year because they stand in such contrast to what the Christmas ideal stands for; namely a time symbolising the fullness of the heart; a time when we are supposed to be at one with all that we love, with all that is love. It is important to remember this as we embrace the season with all our hearts.

Christmas is the season of the heart. It is a time to focus on the ties of the heart, the loves of the heart, the dreams of the heart; it is a time to focus on the hearts yearnings and longings; it is a time when we are called to concentrate on the heart, on what it wants, what it needs and what it compels us to be. Perhaps the darkness and the cold of winter helps us with this as through it we appreciate the light and the warmth that the heart of the season can bring. Perhaps by feeling cut off or separate from the ideals of season, by our own grief and sorrows, we can be brought closer to the true heart of it. Not because we are told me must, but because our own heart’s desire it.

We need to remember this as we rush through this season; we need to remember that for many there is pain and suffering. This is why my theme for Advent this year has about bringing that bit of light from our own hearts and souls into this season. By bringing light to the suffering of others we can bring warmth and light to our own hearts. This helps us connect to ourselves fully, to one another, to all life and to that eternal and universal spirit that runs through all life. For “It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness.” When we light the candle within our own hearts we incarnate the Kingdom of God that is within us and we make it present amongst us. In so doing we bring that commonwealth of love to life right here right now.

The heart of Christmas is connection; connecting with best of ourselves, that of others and that of life. Music and singing aid this. People come together and sing communally more at this time of the year than at any other. We sing together; we sing “Glad Tidings of Comfort and Joy”, both of which are needed during this season. I know the power, the spiritual power of singing so well. Singing is one of those practices that bring me closer to that universal, that eternal spirit, it fills my heart to overflowing and compels me to fill the cups of others. It compels me to give my heart.

To give ones heart is the heart of Christmas. As Christina Rosetti wrote “What shall I give him, give him my heart.”This is the heart of Christmas.

Now of course some will argue, usually the “Bah Humbuggers” that this is not what Christmas, or whatever mid-winter festival they believe they are celebrating, is actually about. Maybe they are correct, but I suspect that they are not. Christmas has meant many things to many different people at many different times. It incorporates many traditions, is celebrated differently around the world and at different times in many other cultures. Some would like to see the back of it from a variety of perspectives both religious and secular, but that’s never going to happen. The power of love runs deep and the heart will always overcome the “Bah Humbuggers”. Just as lighting one candle always overcomes the darkness.

Did you know that Christmas was once banned in England. The Puritans in Parliament wanted the people to focus purely on Sunday as the holy day and wanted rid of all the other festivals, such as Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide, which they considered both heathen and Catholic. Christmas was a time of rejoicing and in the eyes of the Puritans debauchery. Over indulgence and revelry at this time of year is not a new phenomena it has its roots in the Christmas tradition. The Puritans turned Christmas to Christ-tide, a day for fasting rather than over-indulgence. In 1647 they passed an ordinance abolishing it. That said as much as they attempted to enforce them the laws were hard to maintain and the people continued to celebrate these feast in the ways they always had. The measures were completely swept away following the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 when all legislation passed between 1642 and 1660 was made null and void.

Now of course theologically speaking the Puritans were quite right in most of their objections about Christmas and the time that it was held. That said Christmas was never a celebration of theological correctness, of biblical literalism, of doctrinal purity, of historical factuality. Christmas is rooted in the pre Christian traditions. It was originally a celebration of the returning of the sun at the winter solstice that the church co-opted. The birth of Jesus was not assigned to December 25th until the year 336 and only after much debate and argument as this was the time of year that was originally assigned to the sun gods. This included Mithra, a popular deity worshipped throughout the Roman Empire as well as the dying and rising Egyptian god Osiris. So yes they Puritans and other critics are and were correct when they said, and when they say that Christmas was created by the Roman church and was a co-option of already existing winter solstice celebrations.

Does this matter? Well to many yes it does. To me I actually think it enhances and adds to the universal and eternal spirit that is the heart of Christmas.

Christmas, as we celebrate it today, owes as much to Victorian England and the writing of Charles Dickens as to anything else. “A Christmas Carol” first published on December 1843 is the epitome of what we see as the heart of Christmas today. Dickens caught the imagination of his readers in Britain and America and did so much to create the Christmas ideal a time for family and the simple pleasures of coming together around the table heart to heart.

Christmas as we understand it today and certainly the message that lies at its heart has a deep and rich history and has been fed by many traditions both ancient and modern. This is why I believe Christmas is for everyone, in every time and place. It matters not what name we give this festival of the heart that comes alive at this time of year. It matters little to me the variety of roots that formed it either; they certainly do not diminish its power. Quite the opposite actually the universality of it actually enhances my faith in that universal and eternal spirit that I name God, that light of hope that finds a way through in the darkness of winter and warms our hearts and hearths, that runs through it.

You see the heart of Christmas is the heart itself, burst to overflowing, lit up bringing light and warmth into this season of darkness and cold. It brings hope in what can be very cynical times, as it always has. Christmas is the dream of the heart, wishing to come alive. This is why Christmas is both the religious and emotional centre of the year for most folk. Christmas is the time of the heart, which calls us to our truest nature, to be all that we can be.

This is why it is the holiest of holy days and nights. This is why I believe it is for everyone regardless of background and or faith, or lack of it. Christmas connects to something universal, something eternal in all of us which allows us to connect to our true selves, to one another, to all life and to that loving and eternal spirit that runs through all life.

“Oh I wish it could be Christmas every day”. Well it can be if we make it Christmas every day. It begins by lighting that lamp, that fire in our hearts and in our hearths.

“For it is better to light one candle than curse the darkness”

Seasonal Inspiration: Part 1

Over the last few weeks I’ve come across several pieces that have inspired me greatly. I have shared them in worship during this Advent Season. I thought I’d share some of them with you in this the first of two blogs...

The following was sent to me by a friend. I can't read it without it bringing a tear to my eye. I couldn't even listen to it being read out in worship without having the same effect...

“For the Man Who Hated Christmas” by Nancy Gavin

It’s just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past ten years or so.
 

It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas--oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it--overspending... the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma---the gifts given in desperation because you couldn’t think of anything else.
 

Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way.
 

Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended; and shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church. These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler’s ears.
 

It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn’t acknowledge defeat.
 

Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, “I wish just one of them could have won,” he said. “They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them.” Mike loved kids - all kids - and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball and lacrosse. That’s when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years. For each Christmas, I followed the tradition--one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on.
 

The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents.
 

As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn’t end there.

You see, we lost Mike last year due to dreaded cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning, it was joined by three more.
 

Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing to take down the envelope.
 

Mike’s spirit, like the Christmas spirit will always be with us.

The following inspired me to explore the two spirits that are present at Christmas as they are throughout the year. It is also inspired me to look at "Scrooge" as the Christmas archetype. He is the perfect embodiment of both spirits and I believe he speaks to all aspects of our shared humanity

“Two spirits at Christmas” by Max D Gaebler

There are really two spirits of Christmas, each very different from the other, yet both deeply ingrained in our celebrations of the season. and I suspect most of us have more of both within us than we ordinarily recognise.

The first, of course, is the one we usually talk about, the spirit of good will and peace. It is this spirit that bids us renew our hopes amid the gathering darkness, that kindles our generosity and our concerns, that attunes our ears to the ever-renewed angelic chorus.

But the second, equally inseparable from the observations of this season, is the spirit of Scrooge’s “Bah! Humbug!” We all know that hatred and distrust will not disappear from human relationships just because we say it ought to be so. We all know that peace on earth is lot more complicated than it sounds in the Christmas hymns. We all know that if the world and the lamb and the leopard and the kid, the calf and the young lion all got along with one another as famously as Isaiah prophesied that they would, then some of these animals would die of starvation.

What is comes down to is that we give voice at Christmas to extravagant hopes that are beyond the range of any possible fulfilment. They are, as we say in our more sober moments, unrealistic.

But the real question is whether this is so bad. Perhaps the part of wisdom is to accept this reminder of the gap between the real and the ideal for what it is, a spur not only to our hopes but to our imagination and energies. It would be foolish to ignore the element of wishful thinking in our Christmas hopes. But how unspeakably more foolish it would be if we were to accept present reality as the last word and to stop dreaming altogether.

Our hopes are bound, of course, to be disappointed, at least in part. So long as time endures we shall remain creatures in the making, somewhere this side of perfection. Yet there is always hope for moving beyond the tragic failures of the past – if not all the way, at least a few steps farther. Our hopes are forever bound to fall to ashes; yet out of the ashes there can always emerge new hope – again and again and yet again.

I love the following story which was sent to me by my friend and colleague Rev Gillian Peel. It got me thinking of my favourite Carol "In the bleak mid winter" and the line "what shall I give him, give my heart". It's not really about the gifts we give but the spirit in which we give. when we give from our hearts we receive all that our hearts could ever desire. The gift truly is in the giving

"Long Walk Part of Gift" by DAVID S. BLANCHARD

The best story I ever heard about gift-giving has nothing to do with Christmas, and everything to do with Christmas. It's about an African boy who wanted to give a gift to his teacher, who was going home to England. The child had no money and his options were few. The day before the teacher was to leave, the child brought her a huge seashell. The teacher asked the boy where he could have found such a shell. He told her there was only one spot where such extraordinary shells could be found, and when he named the place, a certain bay many miles away, the teacher was speechless.

"Why ... why, it’s gorgeous ... wonderful, but you shouldn't have gone all that way to get a gift for me." His eyes brightening, the boy answered, "Long walk part of gift."

"Long walk part of gift." Most of the meaningful gifts we give to each other require some version of that "long walk." The long walk we sign on for with children, who need our patience, our wisdom, our honesty, and our trust more than we might first have imagined when their lives began. The long walk we share with our spouses, which takes us through uncharted, unexpected territories of sickness and health, richer and poorer, better and worse. The long walk we take with our friends when they are grieving the loss of someone they love, when they are ill, when they are discouraged. The long walk of feeling a sense of unity with those whom prosperity has left behind. The long walk of reconciliation with all that separates us from a deep sense of life’s great purpose and meaning. "Long walk part of gift."

When Christmas has been tidied up and packed away for another year, the gifts acknowledged, many already forgotten, the New Year stretches in front of us. What will get us through those months, with all that they may hold, will not be the things in the boxes. We must look to the hands of those who bought and wrapped and carried those gifts. With their gifts, they are telling us something too wonderful, perhaps too embarrassing, for words. They are telling us that, for us, they will take the long walk.
So when you open the box and find the socks, the bath salts, the fruitcake, the pot holder, or the seashell from a distant ocean, remember that it's not just "the thought" that counts. Remember too,
"long walk part of gift."

This follows a similar theme and makes the point that the value in the gift is in the love contained within it. I actually remember John preaching on this several years ago when he was my minister. “Poinsettia” by Rev John Midgley 

In recent years a plant, the poinsettia, has become a new symbol of Advent, because of its joyous red colour and the story associated with it.

It originates from Mexico where the associated legend is a miracle story, told to the children as part of the Festival of the Holy Journey, a re-enactment of the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. It comes to its climax when the couple arrive in Bethlehem and find no room at the inn. For the Christmas Eve service the people of the towns and villages attend their church and bring gifts for the Christ child, as the three Wise Men did.

The story tells of Pepita, a poor Mexican girl who wanted to attend but had no gift to bring. As she walked slowly to the chapel with her cousin Pedro, her heart was filled with sadness rather than joy. “I am sure, Pepita, that even the most humble gift, if given in love, will be acceptable in His eyes,’ said Pedro to her, consolingly. Not knowing what else to do, Pepita knelt by the roadside and gathered a handful of common weeds, fashioning them into a small bouquet. Looking at the scraggy bunch, she felt more saddened and embarrassed than ever by the humbleness of her offering. She fought back a tear as she entered the small village chapel. All this was made worse by the jeering remarks of those who had bought much grander gifts.

As she approached the alter, she remembered Pedro’s kind words: “Even the most humble gift, if given in love, will be acceptable in His eyes.” She felt her spirit life as she knelt to lay the bouquet at the foot of the nativity scene.

Suddenly the leaves of the bouquet of weeds changed. They were transformed into blooms of brilliant red, and all who saw them were certain that they had witnessed a Christmas miracle, right before their eyes. From that day on, the bright red flowers were known as Flores de Noche Buena, Flowers of the Holy Night, for they bloomed each year during the Christmas season.

“Even the most humble gift, if given in love, will be acceptable”

Again this continues the same theme...how does Santa do it? Well because he fuelled by love...the gift is in the giving and the caring...We can be in top physical shape but that is of no use to us if we aren't in tip top spiritual shape...

“How does Santa do it” by Bruce T Marshall 

I came across a study conducted by psychologists from Harvard and Yale that may shed light on the age-old question. How does Santa Claus do it? How does he keep fit year after year despite a break-neck schedule?

In this study, two groups were told that the plant was theirs to take care of and that its fate would depend on their efforts. They also were told that they were competent men and women who should be making decisions for themselves.

People in the other group were told that their plants would be looked after by the nursing home staff just as the staff took care of them because, after all, they were in the home to be cared for.

Within a few weeks the researchers found a noticeable difference between the two groups. Those who cared for their own plant showed an increase in emotional and physical well-being and a visible increase in activity levels. Eighteen months later, the mortality rate of this group was only half that of the other.

A theme of the holiday season is giving. Giving of course, can become obligation and a cause of considerable stress, but it also enhances our lives as it connects us with others. We are reminded of those who are important to us and who depend on us. Our gifts are in thanks for those who keep us involved in life.

Santa Claus, after all, is overweight, smokes a pipe, and lives on a diet of mince pies and milk (whole milk at that). How does he do it?

It’s probably all that giving and caring – and those people depending on him – that keeps him such a healthy and happy old elf.