So that was Christmas...

Well, after all the build up, another Christmas has now passed. And I wonder 'what was that all about?'

Actually I think much of it is about people wanting to capture a little bit of magic in their lives. There are memories associated with Christmas, notably from childhood, that are pure magic. No other time of year, or any other occasion evokes quite the feelings many have of Christmas.

And when you're a fully grown adult, facing all the daily responsibilities, difficulties, choices, etc that most of us do, there's something about Christmas that offers us the possibility of escape to another world, a world we once knew.

Unfortunately, that's pretty well impossible, and the Christmas many of us long for is just not attainable - and maybe that's why Christmas for so many is associated with depression.

It has become quite a tradition in my family that when we get together with my parents and my brother's family, various silly games come out and we all (from age 11 to seventy something) play 'Shoot a Duck' and 'Monkey Footie' before engaging in charades of various kinds. This pattern has emerged over the course of 3 or 4 years of gatherings and while it was still emerging it had a freshness, something of the unexpected about it. This year however, it appears that it had evolved fully into its final form, so it was almost a carbon copy of last year - and as a consequence lacked that undefinable element that arises from the spontaneity.

It's as if, once perfection is attained, something new must be created otherwise that which has become perfect will in time become tarnished. As it happens, by the end of our time together this week the Monkey Footie had broken beyond repair. So the question remains, do we seek out a replacement on ebay, or do we do something new next year?

I know which way my vote will be cast.

Journey of the Magi

Don't you just love it....

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging highprices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and water-millbeating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped in away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt.
I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like
Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Journey of the Magi, T.S. Elliot (1888–1965)

An angel at the door

Last night, around 9, the doorbell rang - not a normal event at that time of night. I could see an unfamiliar face through the frosted door-glass, and as I opened it with a degree of aprehension, the young man standing there began to sing.

I was quite taken aback. Then I realised what it was he was singing: 'We wish you a merry Christmas...'. It's not that I've never had carol singers turn up on my doorstep, but in the past they've usually been 12 or under, there's normally more than one of them and they're so self-conscious that they can barely finish a verse.

This one though was at least late teens, if not twenties, and while he sang he fixed me with his eyes, never flinching, and delivered it all in a reasonably in-tune tenor. All very unnerving. So much so that I didn't really have time to figure out how to respond. So when he got to '...and a happy new year', and was just launching into 'Silent night...' with hardly a breath to punctuate, I cut him off with a 'Thank you, very nice'. I looked at him a moment longer then said: 'Good night, thank you', to which he replied with a bewildered expression: 'But...aren't you going to give anything?' 'I don't normally', I replied and closed the door.

When I returned to the family I felt quite disturbed. Actually, I felt like a rat bag. It's true, I don't like handing over money on the doorstep, but I could at least have responded to his bewildered plea with: 'What kind of thing were you expecting?' and perhaps offered him a slice of cake, or a book, or ...anything other than 'I don't normally'.

You see, recently I've come to understand that one of the main jobs of a pilgrim is to bless other people, to bring a slice of heaven into the lives of those you meet. I think it fair to say that, on this occasion, I singularly failed to bring even a crumb. Just as well I don't have a 'Thank God for Jesus' sticker on the car parked in the driveway.

On the move

Yesterday, we left our church. It had been coming for quite some time, and had come to the point where we just felt we had to leave. It felt odd - we've been there for 5 years and for much of that time have been involved in various leadership roles. So it's not like we were just 'casuals'.

But I guess it's part of this pilgrim thing. You see, I, we (my wife and I) are very definitely on a journey. I don't know if it's just me, but the thought of being in the same place, doing the same things, holding the same beliefs for the rest of my life freaks me out. I once read that most people have pretty well formed their beliefs (not necessarily religious) by the time they're 30. And we all know people who seem monolithic, unchanging.

There's a verse in the Bible that says God is 'the same, yesterday, today and forever'. I know people who derive great comfort from that verse, knowing that God does not change, and I can understand that - no one wants an unpredictable, capricious God. But there's also a part of me that finds it rather disturbing. Because I want to know a God who is ALWAYS changing, is full of surprises, is just waiting to delight me. And you know, I find that's just how it is if I'm prepared to allow myself to see things differently. Just look around you at the trees, the sky, the flowers. Yes, there's a familiarity about them all, but you never see the same scene as you've seen before. The sky is always painted differently, the flowers are always arranged uniquely, the trees are reshaping themselves all the time.

So, knowing that God is always creating something fresh, it's a bit sad when we, who are created in his image, rumble along in the same low life-gear, along the same roads, not even noticing what's around us because it's become so familiar. I'm not saying we should be chopping and changing all the time, and I'd want you to know that we didn't make our move lightly - like I say, it took a long time in coming - but there are times when we just need to break out of where we are and set out along a new path.

"We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise." The Message, Romans 5:1-3

Do pilgrims run?

I've just been for a run - I do that kind of thing - and I'm thinking that running kind of fits with being a pilgrim. Maybe not with the traditional image of the pilgrim that I grew up with ('He who would valiant be 'gainst all disaster....His first avowed intent, To be a pilgrim'). But to me, being a pilgrim is about being on a quest, an adventure, seeking out, charting new territory, etc. And at its best, running is like that.

At the moment I'm just covering well-trodden, 'autopilot' routes while recovering from injury; and that's OK, I still get the buzz from the run itself. But what I'm not getting is what I've had previously from sitting down with a map, working out a route that will take me into woodland, along bridle paths or following the river, then setting out with just me, my trainers and a few key points written on my hand. I know it's just Stockport, but it might as well be the Amazon jungle - there's certainly as much chance of getting lost.

But what is 'lost'? It's just that you're not sure where you are for a time, and assuming you're not up against a deadline to get back and you're not in trouble, that in itself is thrilling because it holds within it potential for learning something new - about yourself, about your environment. And when you eventually get home and look at the map, you can generally make sense of your 'lostness'.

And I'm wondering as I write, what might the pilgrim of the soul learn from this?

Off at the deep end

Well, here I am. This is my first dive into the world of blogging, and it feels a bit scary. Even if no one reads this, it's the thought that they can! And I'm wondering, do I want to air my views, my thoughts, my opinions, my feelings with the world in this way?

Actually, the answer is yes. In fact that's exactly the reason I'm doing this - making my inner life public is not something that comes easy to me, so this blog is a kind of therapy.

It won't be daily, more likely every few days. But please join me on my journey - my pilgrimage if you will. I'll be talking about spiritual things, things important to me, great reads, funny stuff, and just observations about life around me.

See you soon.