Christmas a Time For-Giving and For-Getting

We are now fully into the Advent Season, the days that lead to Christmas Day. These are the days of waiting of preparation. The music is playing, we can hear all the familiar songs in every shop as we no doubt begin the process of selecting presents for our loved ones.

Have you done all your shopping yet? I’ve not even begun. I will get round to it, but not just yet. I’ve got too much to do. The cards are coming. Actually, I received my first Christmas card in July. It was left with another card for a friend and a gift for him. It was a mutual friend who was in the country for a short while and wanted to say a thank to me and more importantly a mutual friend. A lovely, if little unconventional, gesture.

I also received an unusual request too. I was rung up by someone who occasional attends things at Dunham Road. She asked me if the Christmas Eve service was going to be on Christmas Eve. I wasn’t entirely sure how to answer the question. She told me she was going away that evening and would like to come, but not if the Christmas Eve service was on on Christmas Eve. I told her of other services, but explained that the Christmas Eve service was to held on Christmas Eve.

People can be some wonderfully interesting.

Have you experienced any “Bah Humbug” moments yet? I have had one or two, mostly whilst struck in traffic and wondering if I can get all the things done, I need to do. I seem ever more busy this year. I have already had to cancel a few things. There have been lovely gifts too, mainly gifts of presence and conversation. The most touching and beautiful was during last Sunday’s candlelight service at Dunham Road. Margaret and her son and his partner Sil sitting there in the hospice watching the candles in the dark and silence. It was the beautiful image of her face, the smile as took in the beautiful spirit in the air, alive there and then. It was Margaret’s final service as sadly she died this week. I missed her by half an hour as I was driving in the pouring rain, stuck in traffic, trying to get to the hospice to see her one last times. She died half an hour before I arrived. People tried to call my, but my phone was on do not disturb. I arrived to be told the sad news. I left and wept and then got myself together before going to see her son Peter.

There have been so many tender moments already this Advent seasons, so many beautiful giving of the heart. “What shall I give him, give my heart.” There have been other moments of loving generosity, moments of tears and joy and laughter too. I have recently discovered that “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Maraih Carey shares the same meter as “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”. I decided to record it as a voice message and send it to friends as a way of sharing some joy, mirth and merriment, a gift for folk I know. I will no doubt be singing it again.

Just my way of giving something I have from my heart. By the way if you want to hear a version please click on the video devotion at the bottom of this "Blogspot"

The following were the last few words from the opening prayer last Sunday, by Victoria Safford?

Now is the moment of magic,

and here's a blessing:
we already possess all the gifts we need;
we've already received our presents:
ears to hear music,
eyes to behold lights,
hands to build true peace on earth
and to hold each other tight in love.

I have felt these gifts alive and well these last few days, I have felt the spirit at the heart of them moving too. I have made some use of them as I have gone about my work these last few days and I have felt the love of others too, mixed in with the odd “Bah Humbug”

How do we make good use of the gifts we have been given from the beginning and throughout our lives? How do we bring these gifts to life in this beautiful present that is right here, right now? How do we make best use of the gift of life?

I will leave that one with you to ponder…

For most of us Christmas is about the giving and receiving of presents, but not necessarily about the gifts we both give and receive. It is not just wanton materialism of “Black Friday” or some of the excesses of the coming days. There is a greater gift at the heart of this, in this time for giving and for getting, or forgiving and forgetting, however you understand it.

The giving and receiving of gifts is at the heart of Christmas. I suspect that the tradition of giving and receiving gifts at Christmas time is linked to the three gifts of the Magi “Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh”. Gifts of great value 2,000 years ago, although only gold has retained its worth today. Now in early Christianity the journey of the Magi was celebrated on the Feast of the Epiphany on the 6th of January, the 12th day of Christmas, hence the Carol “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree”…etc...). Interesting this is when Christmas is celebrated in the Eastern, the Orthodox Church, on the 12th night.


The early Christian church did not celebrate Christmas as we do today. The tradition of giving Christmas presents is really a modern one. By Victorian times the culture of gift giving and the mythos of Father Christmas, St Nicholas or Santa Claus was beginning to take hold, immortalised in the fiction of Dickens and the like. As the twentieth century moved on into the twenty first this culture developed into mass consumerism. Today it would seem that buying, wrapping and giving gifts has become nothing more than a mechanical chore and one of the worst examples of mass consumerism going. Is this really what Christmas is about? Is this really giving by heart? Is this really the spirit of Christmas? Well it can be if we select, give and receive these gifts in the spirit of love. In so doing we bring the spirit of season alive, by incarnating the words from my favourite Carol “In the Bleak mid-winter”…

This takes me back to that gift selected and wrapped and delivered back in July, a little offering of thanks for a friend.

“What shall I give him? Give my heart”

I believe that the true spirit of Christmas is the heart, that this is the gift of the season. Christmas above everything else truly is the season of the heart. When we truly give our gifts to others we are giving them our hearts and when we truly give from our heart to another we are somehow bringing that heart of God alive and that spirit is once again incarnating in life.

This is the religion, the spirit that can still be discovered beneath the ribbons and the wrapping paper. This is the spirit that can once again come alive if we engage in the giving and receiving of gifts and not merely presents. This is one way in which we can truly begin to become a gift to the world. Something to think about this season, what can you give of your heart, from your heart, where it is needed.

It is amazing what can emerge from folk if we would but encourage and nurture it.

I remember being told a story of how the Onondaga people would teach their children about generosity. The Onondaga were one of five original Iroquois found in present day New York state south of Lake Ontorio. It seems that when it was time to teach a child the tribe would gather together in a circle and the child would be brought to the centre of that circle and given wonderful things to drink. After the child had drunk to their hearts content. A voice would cry out from outside the circle saying, 'I'm thirsty, I'm thirsty.' The child would then be encouraged to take the drink to the thirsty person. The child would then be brought back into the circle and fed the most wonderful feast of food. They would then hear a voice from outside the circle, crying out, 'I'm hungry, I'm hungry.' Again, the child would leave the circle to feed the hungry person. The child would then be brought back to the circle and be given the most exotic and beautiful, warm clothes to wear. Then a voice would again cry out, crying, 'I'm cold, I'm cold.” The child would then gather up clothes and help dress the freezing person.

Reminds of the words of Jesus “What you do to the least them, you do to me.”

What a beautiful way to teach empathy and interconnection and community. It speaks powerfully to me to what is at the heart of Christmas; it speaks powerfully to me of what are the gifts at the heart of Christmas.

I have been thinking a lot of ministry and my journey into ministry of late. I was asked again recently what drew me, what called me into ministry. It was of course heartache and grief. That said it was more than that it was also gifts of generosity and love, which began as I have said many times before, with a gift of soup and loving kindness. Folk giving from their heart in a time of broken despair. I carry that loving spirit and generosity with me. I have been given many free gifts and meals throughout my life. There are many graces in life.

As I was driving home from the hospice the other evening, in tears of grief I was listening to the radio, ”The Lamb” by John Tavener began to played. This was a piece of music I was learning to sing in a choir at the time that Ethan was killed in the autumn of 2006. That Advent we sang it for the first time and dedicated it to his precious little life. Ethan was my Immanuel, the one who showed me that God is still with us. Recovering from that grief and the gift of that soup was central to my journey into ministry. Therefore it seemed fitting that this was the piece that was playing that brought me glad tidings of comfort and joy once more at a time of grief. It showed that God was indeed still with us. There have been some beautiful gifts of care and love offered again these last few days.

When I really think of the gifts I have been given, the greatest is of course life itself. This is of course the ultimate free gift. The ultimate unearned grace. It is easy to say we are grateful, for the gifts we have been given, whether at Christmas or throughout the year; whether they are material or spiritual in nature. But I am not so sure that this is what gratitude actually is. Gratitude is active thing, it is more than giving thanks, it is doing something with the gifts we have been given.

This is really what I would like us to think about over the coming days as we approach Christmas. To consider the gifts that we have been granted and to perhaps think of the gifts we would like. To remember, but not passively, let’s instead make of them acts of remembrance, of all that has been freely given to us, gifted to us. Let’s also make from these gifts a true act of gratitude for all that is our lives. Let’s become a part of the gift that is life itself and express this in our being. Let’s become the gift to the world. And pour out this gift on one another and to all life, in all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do…

Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "Blogspot"

Turning Presents Into True Gifts

We are now fully into the Advent Season, the days that lead to Christmas Day. These are the days of waiting of preparation. The music is playing, we can hear all the familiar songs in every shop as we no doubt begin the process of selecting presents for our loved ones.

Have you done all your shopping yet? I’ve not even begun. I will soon, but not just yet. I’ve got too much to do.

Have you experienced any “Bah Humbug” moments yet?

I noticed one from a friend of mine. She posted a “Meme” on Facebook. A cartoon depicting two figures. The first is putting up Christmas decorations and saying to the other “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” to which the other responds in far less enthusiastic way “It’s not Christmas though is it Barbara, because it is still XXXXXXX November.”

The Meme was a protest against how soon Christmas had begun this year, especially in the shops etc. I replied to the ”Meme” stating “Just to be an annoying pedant. It’s Advent, it began on Sunday. If you want to be truly liturgically accurate Christmas doesn’t actually begin until sunset on Christmas Eve. None of us want that, so please no more Bah Humbugging. “There followed many other complaints about the celebration of Christmas coming too early, people putting up their decorations too early etc. I put up mine on Tuesday night. I have gone much further than I usually do. Molly is certainly enjoying this. It seems she loves stealing baubles from the tree and playing with them. I have had to move Father Christmas and his little helpers out of her reach. Many folk have been telling me off all week for doing so, telling me I wasn’t allowed to until Thursday 1st December, to which I replied that Advent had already begun. It’s funny how folk suddenly get all Puritanical about these things from time to time.

I get where this all comes from, especially as it has been Christmas in most of the shops, since the beginning of November. There has been a Christmas tree in Café Nero for weeks. I know this because Molly stole a bauble from their tree several weeks ago. It has been her favourite toy since then.

The “Bah humbugging” about the early celebration of Christmas stems from this sense of over commercialisation and the thought that the spirit of the season will be lost. It seems that for many Christmas has become an almost secular exercise. Afterall less than half of the population now identify as Christian, at least according the figures published this week, from last year’s census.

Is it true though. Have we killed the spirit of the season with this over commercialisation? I’m not convinced. I think the spirit lives on and actually is present in the very act of such celebrations and even the buying and commercial activities.

If we look purely at the surface, there appears little evidence of my view. The Christmas season appears to be mass consumerism gone mad. The worst excesses of which seem to form in that most hideous of American imports “Black Friday”, which in reality is linked to the American holiday of “Thanksgiving”. We have not taken that part on, just “Black Friday”, not the giving of thanks bit. This occurred over the weekend that Advent began. And yet there is the spirit of Christmas in the spiritual elements of “Thanks Giving”. This is surely something that can be extended into this Advent season and on into Christmas itself. The spirit of Christmas is surely about giving thanks for the gifts we have been given and expressing this thanks in our lives by using our gifts in this our lives. We can become gifts to this our world, we can live in and through gratitude.

This can be exemplified in the presents that we buy for our loved ones, as they can become gifts. If chosen and wrapped with loving intention, then surely even this commercial activity is spiritual in nature.

In “The Gift” by David Blanchard, distinguished between a gift and a present. How the gift has a far more deeply spiritual and heartfelt significance than merely a present. It touched a part, deep in the heart of me.

Now of course the word “present” is something the spiritually inclined are obsessed with in our current age. So many talk of the gift of the present moment, that this is where life is. I’m certainly not one to wish to argue with these thoughts. That said I wonder if sometimes we become so obsessed with the present that we forget about the gifts we carry with us that we have been given in those many moments in the past. Too often we wish to lose what has gone before in our intense focus on the present that we fail to embrace the gifts that have come throughout our lives. I have come to believe that to truly embrace the moment, to be truly present requires me to be fully engaged with every moment of my life, for there the true gifts of life emerge.

Perhaps to truly live in the present moment is to bring our whole selves, every breath of our lives and perhaps every life that has made our life into this sublime moment.

This year I have reflected much on my life, perhaps more than I have for a while. I have thought much about the gifts I’ve been given throughout my days. Gifts I have not always appreciated at the time. In fact, many I failed to notice when they were given. The gifts of the love given by the precious people I have shared my life with, some who are no longer physically with me. The things they took the time to show me, how to do things and just how to be; the times they made me laugh and cry; the joy that they brought to my being. Gifts given freely from their heart to mine.

I’ve also been thinking of the many gifts I was simply born with, that I have not always made best use of, the Graces of life. I have been contemplating how I can make better use of these, the ultimate of free gifts, not just for myself but for the good of all?

Here's an extract from a prayer I shared during the Advent service.

Now is the moment of magic,

and here's a blessing:
we already possess all the gifts we need;
we've already received our presents:
ears to hear music,
eyes to behold lights,
hands to build true peace on earth
and to hold each other tight in love.

How do we make good use of the gifts we have been given from the beginning and throughout our lives? How do we bring these gifts to life in this beautiful present that is right here, right now? How do we make best use of the gift of life?

I will leave that one with you to ponder…

For most of us Christmas is about the giving and receiving of presents, but not necessarily about the gifts we both give and receive.

I suspect that the tradition of giving and receiving gifts at Christmas time is linked to the three gifts of the Magi “Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh”. Gifts of great value 2,000 years ago, although only gold has retained its worth today. Now in early Christianity the journey of the Magi was celebrated on the Feast of the Epiphany on the 6th of January, the 12th day of Christmas, hence the Carol “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree”…etc...)

The early Christian church did not celebrate Christmas as we do today. The tradition of giving Christmas presents is really a modern one. By Victorian times the culture of gift giving and the mythos of Father Christmas, St Nicholas or Santa Claus was beginning to take hold, immortalised in the fiction of Dickens and the like. As the twentieth century moved on into the twenty first this culture developed into mass consumerism. Today it would seem that buying, wrapping and giving gifts has become nothing more than a mechanical chore and one of the worst examples of mass consumerism going. Is this really what Christmas is about? Is this really giving by heart? Is this really the spirit of Christmas? Well it is if we select, give and receive these gifts in the spirit of love. In so doing we bring the spirit of season alive, by incarnating the words from my favourite Carol “In the Bleak mid-winter”…

“What shall I give him? Give my heart”

I believe that the true spirit of Christmas is the heart, that this is the gift of the season. Christmas above everything else truly is the season of the heart. When we truly give our gifts to others we are giving them our hearts and when we truly give from our heart to another we are somehow bringing that heart of God alive and that spirit is once again incarnating in life.

This is the religion, the spirit that can still be discovered beneath the ribbons and the wrapping paper. This is the spirit that can once again come alive if we engage in the giving and receiving of gifts and not merely presents. This is one way in which we can truly begin to become a gift to the world.

When I really think of the gifts I have been given the greatest is of course life itself. This is of course the ultimate free gift. The ultimate unearned grace. It is easy to say we are grateful, for the gifts we have been given, whether at Christmas or throughout the year; whether they are material or spiritual in nature. But I am not so sure that this is what gratitude actually is. Gratitude is anactive thing, it is more than giving thanks, it is doing something with the gifts we have been given.

This is something to reflect on over the coming weeks as we approach Christmas. To consider the gifts that we have been granted and to perhaps think of the gifts we would like. To remember, but not passively, let’s instead make it an act of remembrance, of all that has been freely given to us, gifted to us. Let’s also make from these gifts a true act of gratitude for all that is our lives. Let’s become a part of the gift that is life itself and express this in our being. Let’s become the gift to the world. And pour out this gift on one another and to all life, in all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do…

Below is a devotion based on 

the material in this "blogspot"

The Gift of Small Things: A Living Gratitude List

The other day I was chatting with a man, we often greet one another as we pass in the street. We did our usual of saying hello. I asked him how he was and he replied, “I am doing ok”. He politely returned the question and I answered “all is well”. He took a couple of more steps and then he stopped and said, “well actually things haven’t been ok.” He knows who I am, he continued saying “my wife has been quite ill with Covid and is in hospital again suffering from “Long Covid”, it is very worrying.” You could see he looked so very lost. Then he reached into his pocket and produced a “scratty” piece of paper with a list words on it. He showed it to me saying “These are the list of all the different doctors, consultants and other practitioners that have been to see her, to try to help. Not students or ones just to look at her, but who are trying to help her get well.” I thanked him for showing me his simple “Gratitude List”. I wished him and his family well and told him I would be thinking of them and holding them in my heart and my prayers. As he walked away, I wondered how many people he was sharing this list with; I wondered how many he had helped in so doing. I thought I am sure it is helping to sustain him in this difficult time. It had certainly helped me that day as I was returning from an upsetting and distressing situation myself. The conversation was a beautiful gift and I felt graced by what he had so freely given me, passing on gifts that had been so freely given to him and his wife. I wonder how many of these gifts, these graces bless our lives every day. I wonder how often we think about them, I wonder how often we share about them. Yes, we say thank you, but how often do we act with gratitude for these wonderful gifts that are freely given. What Kent Nerburn calls “The Small Graces”, those gifts of the ordinary, what I share as my “little things”

It is important to acknowledge the gifts that come freely in life, there are so many. We don’t always notice them. I know how much it helps me when I do. That said this is not enough on its own. I know lots of people who as a practice write gratitude lists. I am sure it helps them think about the blessings in their lives, I know it has for me. It is not enough though, just to acknowledge, just to say thank you. For the thank you to be true gratitude, what is required is for us to do something with these free gifts, these graces. We need to make acts of gratitude, like the man with his list. He is acknowledging and he is sharing with others the deep care his wife is receiving. This is why I say his “scratty” piece of paper is a “True Gratitude List”. In the same way that faith is dead, it is meaningless, unless it is shown through works; or that saying “sorry” doesn’t mean anything unless true acknowledgement of wrong doing is made; our thanks is meaningless too, unless it is transformed into acts of gratitude. I don’t mean grand gestures here by the way, I mean simple, humble meaningful ones. To quote good old Micah 'And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?' Well to me that is precisely what that man was doing while he was sick with worry about his wife. He was still able to create and share his “scratty” gratitude list; he was still able to create a humble act of gratitude. I’m sure that piece of paper is a lot scrattier today, due to how often he has removed it from his pocket and shared it with someone. It also answered a little riddle for me, I now know what my scratty little magpie has transformed into. Thank you.

Like all spiritual muscles “gratitude” needs to be exercised for it to grow and become more useful. I have noticed it developing in me every since that doorstep gift left by a friend and ever since I’ve been sharing about “the little things” or what Nerburn has called “The Small Graces”. The magic of exercising gratitude is that it enables us to look outward, it is an ”unselfie” approach as what it does is that it helps us focus our lens outward rather than inward. It helps us appreciate the small gifts around and us and to see where the work needs to be done. In so doing it enables us to live out our faith in life itself.

I wonder which way our lenses are focused each day. Are we taking in the world or our purely focused on ourselves. We are made to live in the world. We are relational beings. This is the spiritual life.

Living by Gratitude is not about the things we do or do not receive; it is about being in relationship. It is about being in relationship with ourselves, the life we have, the people we share it with, the planet we inhabit and the universe we are a small but vital part of. It is also about being in relationship with whatever we understand is at the core of this. For me this is God, others understand this differently or give it another name. What we name it is almost irrelevant. What is really important is how we respond to this mystery that is life. All of us can pray for a grateful heart, for the gift that is life itself, and for the opportunities that life offers to us, but it doesn’t mean much if we don’t do something with it.

One of my favourite quotations is the following by Meister Eckhart:

If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is “thank you,” that would suffice

I love it and yet I know that merely saying “thank you” is not enough. Yes it is faith, but it lacks the works for it to be an act of gratitude. Saying thank is part of it, acknowledging what is given is vital, but it is not enough. Yes, it is a vital component of living spiritually alive, but it is not quite enough; we do need to want what we have in life, but it’s not quite enough. For we do not live in the clouds we live here on earth and for faith to truly become vital we must transform it into works. Saying thank you is not enough, what matters is what we do with the thanks and praise we offer. What we do with the greatest gift of all, life, that we have been freely given. Something that we played no part in receiving. Life is the first free gift that we are all given, but it is not the last. How often do we see this. Certainly I have neglected it at times. Life is the first Grace, but not the last.

Gratitude shares the same linguistic root as grace, gift, pleasing, it originally meant goodwill. So, it seems to me that to live from gratitude to is live from goodwill, it is an act of goodwill. It is kind of like living in a state of grace, or gracefully if you like, which is a lot better than being a disgrace, which is perhaps a reflection of the ungrateful, those whose lens is purely focused inwardly, those who only really think of themselves. Those who only notice what is wrong with their lives and are unable to see what is around them. I bet they don’t have a “scratty” piece of paper to share, or if they do that theirs is a list of those who they resent and want to get back at.

So, what is your list like? What are you carrying around with you and sharing with the world?

When I think of sharing of the gifts that life freely gives, of a living gratitude list, I often think of poetry as being one form. One of my favourites is Mary Oliver who had a wonderful gift of sharing such things with the world; an ability to see “The Small Graces”, despite life’s very real troubles. She certainly had many herself, but she found salvation in “The Little Things” and she shared them with the world.

This is expressed beautifully in her poem “The Gift”, I particularly love the line “I wanted to thank the mockingbird for his song.” She describes doing this by playing him some music from Mahler and the mockingbird played some of it back to her. It is a bit like me and my blackbird, we sing back to one another, forever raising each another’s voices. My friend sharing his “scratty” gratitude list, is just like Mary’s mockingbird and my blackbird. Aren’t each of us singing our songs, in our own ways.

So here is Mary’s poem “The Gift”. It seems an appropriate way to end this devotion. I hope we can all be as grateful as she was, I hope we can all take the world as seriously as Mary did, and remember to turn our lens outward and see all that is in our world to savour and perhaps save and to share it. I hope we can all make living gratitude lists, to crumpled, no matter how scratty.

“The Gift” by Mary Oliver

I wanted to thank the mockingbird for the vigor of his song.
Every day he sang from the rim of the field, while I picked
blueberries or just idled in the sun.
Every day he came fluttering by to show me, and why not, the white blossoms in his wings.
So one day I went there with a machine, and played some songs of Mahler.
The mockingbird stopped singing, he came close and seemed to listen.
Now when I go down to the field, a little Mahler spills through the sputters of his song.
How happy I am, lounging in the light, listening as the music floats by!
And I give thanks also for my mind, that thought of giving a gift.
And mostly I'm grateful that I take this world so seriously.

Below is a video devotion based 

on the material in this "blogspot"

Becoming The Gift We Have All Been Waiting For

We are now fully into the Advent Season, the days that lead to Christmas Day. These are the days of waiting of preparation. The music is playing, we can hear all the familiar songs in every shop as we no doubt begin the process of selecting presents for our loved ones.

Have you done all your shopping yet? I’ve not even begun. I will soon, but not just yet. I’ve got too much to do.

Gifts of course come in many forms. Not all are wrapped in paper and tied up in ribbons. Some come in other forms, some wrapped in flesh, human flesh. I remember at primary school once being asked what was my favourite Christmas present had been, to which my answer was “Our Natalie”, my youngest sister had just been born a few days before Christmas. Her life has proved to be a wonderful blessing, even if she is a little too well named. Our Natalie never stops nattering. That said she is a gift beyond gifts.

When I look back at my life I have known some wonderful gifts in human form. Some of whom I have known for only a short time and others all my life. I’ve been thinking of these folk quite a lot these last few days. While I may not carry those people with me physically, their love is tied up in my heart. I do not forget these things, in fact in many ways my life is an act of remembrance of the love they gave, and certainly my ministry is.

Last week an old friend, someone who I have begun to see a little of once again in recent times, reminded me of a book I had given him as a gift 12 Christmases ago. He told me he had been re-reading it in recent weeks and reminded me of an inscription I had written in it, some simple words of gratitude, simply for being himself. He told me that reading it had led him on a path of spiritual discovery and wanted to thank me for it. I could have wept, I would have wept if I had not being in company. Now while this boy does cry, he rarely does so in the company of others, I am always the minister.

The conversation brought to mind another gift of a blessing that a dear friend gave me 11 months later, on the day my heart was broken, as I lost the most precious gift that ever entered my life, my friend Claire’s son Ethan, my Immanuel. The one who showed to me that God is indeed with us.

The day Ethan died I was utterly broken. I was alone with nowhere to go and ended up with friends from the Cross Street congregation, three in particular Alan Myerscough, Wynne Semeter and Peter Sampson. John Midgley had already come to the hospital and ministered to us as best he could. I will never forget what John gave that day, even though I have since learnt that he felt he let me down, nothing could be further from the truth. What I remember the most though about that day is a simple bowl of soup that Wynne warmed for me, sat me down and made me eat. It didn’t change anything about the hell I was in but the love warmed me physically, emotionally and spiritually. I felt God was with me, expressed in human form, incarnated in those around me. I also remember how much others were friends to me in the coming months, particularly my friend Derek.

The Christmas that followed was a hard for so many people, but in so many ways it was beautiful. A beautiful example of people coming together in love, a glimpse of the kingdom of love that I believe is at the core of the true Christmas message. It is certainly the message I read in Matthews Gospel, to me this is what it means to follow that yonder star the wise men from the east were seeking. I pay homage to those gifts of divine love that I have known in human form, that have blessed my life and shown to me that God is with us indeed.

Christmas is a time of celebration, of family and others coming together once again in love. It is a time when everything is heightened and illuminated. This can be difficult for some people, particularly Christmas Day. For some people who are not feeling so joyous, Christmas can actually increase those feelings of isolation and loss. As we sit round the Christmas dinner table we may notice not so much the ones that are there, but the ones who are not there. Often those we have lost due to death’s dark shadow, but also those who are not there due irreconcilable differences. I notice the empty chairs around my own family’s table. I always have done. I fully feel the joy of the day, but also its sadness.

Yes Christmas can be hard for some people. We need to remember this as we engage in our joy. And if we really want to bring the love at the centre of the season to life, we ought to perhaps think of ways in which we can bring a bit of love into their lives. One simple act of love can change a person’s life for ever. It certainly has mine.

There is a tradition that has developed in recent years that has begun to recognise that Christmas has its shadow side as well as its light. Many places of worship now conduct what are called “Blue Christmas” services. They are held at this time of the year for those who have lost a loved one during the year, or who are remembering losses from previous years.

Grief can sting more sharply at this time of the year because such feelings stand in contrast to what is the ideal of this Christmas season, namely, a time of the fullness of the heart, a time when one is united to all that one loves.

Christmas is about the heart, the ties of the heart, the loves of the heart, the dreams of the heart, the yearnings and longings of the heart. At Christmas we are called to concentrate on the heart; we are called to concentrate on what the heart wants, what it needs, and how it calls us to live. This is not easy if your heart is broken by grief.

By the way grief may not be the loss of person to death, it may be the end of a relationship, or the loss of livelihood and or health.

Sometimes the light of Christmas can illuminate this suffering in our hearts and lives. This can make the lives of some appear more dark and dreary as we are burdened with the memory of too many failures, too many defeats, too much sorrow. Sometimes loneliness, fear, selfishness, discouragement, and resentment turn the bells of Christmas into bitter mockery.

We need to remember this in this season of the heart. Such people need to gift at the heart of this season more than others.

So what can we do?

Well we can give the greatest gift of the season, we can give our heart. How do we do this by giving just a little bit of time and attention to someone who really needs it. In so doing we will truly begin to sanctify this season by giving one another perhaps the greatest present of them all, our true presence. A pearl of great price, a gift beyond material value. The most priceless commodity of them all.

Do you know what we can all bring the spirit of Christmas alive in our hearts and lives. It’s quite simple really, it is not even difficult. Anyone of us can do it. All it requires us to do is to open our hearts, to become the gift that we have all been waiting for. How do we begin? Well again that is quite simple too. All that we have to do is look all around us, in our own families and our own communities. You don’t need to look above to find the star to follow, you just need to look around, find the need around you and invite those suffering around you into your hearts and lives. Unwrap the greatest gift you have been given, your own heart. Become a memory that may change someone’s life forever. You have that power within you. Go use it.

This will be my focus this season, I invite you to come and join with me,  in this giving of our true presence, the ultimate present. To open our hearts to those around us. To pay attention to those close at hand. To bring the heart of Christmas alive, to incarnate love in our own lives. To become one another’s Immanuel’s, to show that God is indeed with us.

It really is that simple. We can bring the spirit of the season alive once again. We can bring Christmas alive in the presence of each and every day. We can become the greatest gift that anyone could wish for.

We no longer have to wish it could be Christmas every day, we can make it Christmas every day. By simply blessing each day with our presence, by giving our whole hearts to those who really need it.

The Gift of Inspiration

“Inspiration” by Bernie S. Siegel from “365 Prescriptions for the Soul”

When I speak to respiratory therapists the words inspiration and inspire relate to the act of breathing, mechanical movements of the chest and diaphragm which pull air into our lungs. Yet these words carry a much more significant meaning as well.

In many languages the word for breath or inspiration relates to our spirit and spark of life. I do not think it is an accident that this meaning is shared. After all, God breathed life into Adam through his nostrils. That first inspiration brought life into a piece of clay. Dust became alive.

We are all dust and clay until we find inspiration in our lives. When we are inspired, we change the world, not by changing others, but by changing ourselves. If everyone on this planet felt inspired and breathed life into each other, we would have a world of companionship and love."

...Inspiring words me thinks...

The other Saturday was a rare gift for me. I got to spend the day with my brother. I had rung him the weekend before to wish him a Happy Birthday and during the chat he asked me what I was doing the Saturday afterwards. I checked my diary and said I am free from about 11am onwards. He then asked if I lived near Cheadle Hulme, which of course I do. He then proceeded to tell me that his daughter Scarlet and he would travelling up to Cheadle Hulme School as she was competing in the national under 11 girl’s chess championship. When I heard this news I instantly said “I will be there,” cheering her on. (I realised a little later that cheering someone on while playing chess might not be entirely appropriate...Tee, hee, hee...)

I rarely get the chance to spend time with my brother, one of the few people who have known me and who I have known all my life, so it was a real treat. It was a proud moment for him too. His daughter was captaining her county team Hertfordshire, on the top table and at eight years old in an under 11 tournament. My only concern was whether she would be competing against someone from Yorkshire, in which case my loyalties would be split. Thankfully this did not happen as Yorkshire do not compete in this competition. Apparently they like to do things their own way…something’s never change in the “Great County”.

My brother had a love and talent for chess as a child too, so I know how excited he was for his daughter and how her love for chess and her talent had reawakened a passion in him. He recounted how he had taught me as a child, but I had no real interest. I also remembering him telling me how he himself had been taught by our older step brother, “Our Allen”, who had sadly died a couple of years ago. The gift and inspiration Al passed on to him is living on.

It was a lovely day spending time with family, sharing in something that they loved. It was also a real blessing, a beautiful gift to witness these young people applying and enjoying themselves through the gift of a game that I have no understanding of. Chess is not a game for me. I know how to play, how the pieces work etc but I have no understanding of the game at all, my mind is just not wired up and tuned in that way. My mind, my heart and my soul work in very different ways. That said it was a beautiful gift, to witness them making use of what they have been given. I left inspired by these young people.

We all have our gifts, our different abilities. No two people are exactly alike. We are all born with certain aptitudes and innate ability. We all have something to offer the world, to share with life, but they are not all the same. Thank God. I myself have always been a communicator, but never an athlete. My mum often tells me I could talk long before I could walk. That you could hold a conversation with me as toddler long before I took my first steps. There were two reasons for this. My mind is wired for communication and also because I was born with underdeveloped nerve endings in the base of my spine. This made physical activities difficult as a child. There was even a time when I was not allowed to engage in sport during childhood, something I hated as I watched the other children run and play. I have been re-feeling these memories in recent weeks as I have been attempting to get fit and work with a personal trainer. The old problems are still there, only I’m much older now. That said the shame is no longer there and I am determined to make the most of my body, despite its limitations. While never being athletic and never being wired up for chess I have always been a determined person. I do try to make the most of what I have been given, no matter how limited and not only for myself, but for the good of all. Whatever we have been given, what life has been gifted to us is not for ourselves alone, but to share and for the good of all.

2016 has been a strange year so. One phenomenon I have noticed has been the high rate of “celebrity” deaths. Many icons of my age and my parents age have died this year, an unprecedented number in fact. From David Bowie, Alan Rickman and Terry Wogan in January to Victoria Wood and Prince in the last week and many many more. The Daily Telegraph, who maintain a gallery of famous people’s deaths, have recorded more famous deaths already in 2016 (75) than 2014 (38) and 2015 (30) combined.

Now this could just be put down as a one off, an unfortunate year, but it seems that actually this is a trend that is likely to continue. According to Nick Serpell the BBC’s obituary editor this is because “People who started becoming famous in the 1960s are now entering their 70s and are starting to die.” He also suggested that it will continue to rise because of the increasing phenomenon of celebrity. Stating that: “There are also more famous people than there used to be…In my father or grandfather’s generation, the only famous people really were from cinema – there was no television.”

Many of these celebrities, who have died this year, are from the baby boom generation, meaning that they were the first generation to experience fame in the era of TV. This is when the cult of celebrity began to take off, when people first began to be swept up by it and it has continued to grow ever since, even more so in this mass social media age. The trend will continue, we will lose more and more. This is because as Nick Serpell has explained: “Over the next 10 years, these people will get into their 80s and it is going to continue at this level…And that doesn’t count the surprise deaths, when people die that shouldn’t.”

It seems it’s something that we are all going to have to get used to.

Now of course this not something we should get too sad about. People like Bowie, Prince, Terry Wogan, Victoria Wood, Alan Rickman shone and inspired us in their own unique ways, making the most of their gifts and sharing them with us, bringing us joy and excitement along the way. Just as the people closer to us, ordinary people, have done so by sharing their lives and their loves with us. Just as we do when we do the same. There are many people who we have known in our lives who have no doubt inspired us to be all that we can be, as we have inspired others to be all that they can be.

Just think of the lives that you have touched and the lives that have touched yours…so many moments…Far too many to mention…

By making best use of the gifts we have been given we can inspire others to do the very same.

Inspire is one of those words, like so many in common usage, that has been reduced in meaning as time as gone by. We have reduced its power as our lives have become secularised. It originally meant “immediate influence of God”, especially with reference to the writing of a Holy book. Coming from the French “inspiracion meaning “inhaling, breathing in inspiration”, coming from the Latin “inspirare” meaning to breath in, to inflame. To inspire means to breath upon, to blow into, to excite, to inflame, to affect, to arouse, but do so through spirit or soul, it is a Divine activity. Therefore it seems reasonable to conclude that when we inspire others we are engaging in Divine activity. To inspire others is to engage in one of the highest form of love, as it is Divine love in human action.

Now such figures such as David Bowie and Prince have been called geniuses. It is often an overused word but I think it is fair to apply it to those greats who have inspired us. For it has been through their ability to inspire that their genius came alive; their genius breathed its life into the lives of others.

They are not the only ones though. We all have the genius seed within us. We are all born, we are all graced, with certain gifts. The real genius of course is the one who can give birth to theirs and inspire others to do the same with theirs.

Now throughout human history this genius within us has been understood in different ways. Many, beginning with Plato, talked of each of us being born with a companion, what some might describe as a spirit that remembers our true nature and therefore "calling" and which can guide us back to our greatest animation. It is this that truly brings us alive, that animates our very being that enthuses us. This inner spirit animates our soul, this is the genius within each and every one of us. It has been called by many names such as muse, inner voice, still small voice, higher self, guardian angel or what the ancient Greeks referred to as Daemon. It breathes its life into us and inspires us and through acting from it we too inspire others.

The gifts life has bestowed upon us, our genii are not meant to be kept or selfishly horded. They are meant to be given away, they are meant to be shared with others. Our task is to make the most of these gifts, to enjoy them and to share them with others, thus inspiring them to make the most of what life has given them. This I believe is the point the epistle Paul was making in is first letter to the Corinthians chapter twelve.

Paul wrote the letter because each member of the congregation, in their struggle to be the perfect congregational leader, was getting in the way of the others. Each one of them wanted to possess all the good qualities that make up a good leader, to become the perfect leader and to leave the others in their shadow. Each one was an actor trying to play the director and run the whole show. How often in life does this occur?

Paul taught that the spirit does not allow even the possibility that one person can possess all the talents. That said if people come together in love, live interdependently and inspire one another with their gifts they will create a community for the good of all.

We all have gifts, talents that have been bestowed upon us and I believe we have a responsibility to learn to use these gifts well and to recognise that the same spirit that gave us these gifts requires us to use them cooperatively with those who have different gifts to us. They are not to be used lightly and selfishly, neither are they to be despised or loathed. In so doing we will inspire others to do the same, to make the most of what they have been freely given.

Let us be grateful for the gifts that have been bestowed upon us. Let us make the most of these aspects of our humanity that have been given us. Let us learn to share them with one another. Let us be inspired by one another’s gifts and create a true kin-ship of love right here, right now.

Let’s breathe our inspiration into one another.

Amen