Death...

Death. Seems like a strange subject with which to be heralding Christmas. Unfortunately, it has a habit of hitting you when you least expect it. I guess that's one of it's features. Just this week I heard about the death of a friend and colleague, and for me it came totally out of the blue - I had no idea he had been ill.

Chris Hildyard was one of those people who was so full of life, energy and enthusiasm that the news came as a particular shock. He always had that timeless quality: when I first got to know him in his late 40s he looked pretty much the same as he did in recent pictures 20 years on. What made his death particularly difficult to take was that he was so good for the world. Increasingly, I'm coming to see that the Christian gospel is less about getting people to believe the right things and thereby save them from eternal damnation as it is about being good news for the world; it's about saving the world from the impact of sin, bringing a quiet revolution into our communities.

Chris lived it. His faith was strong and vibrant; it motivated and influenced him in every area of his life. But that didn't make him into one of those po-faced, joyless evangelicals who are rarely good news for anyone. No, Chris was always good for a laugh, exuded great warmth, was so hospitable and great to have around.

On a webpage that Chris's grown children have created in his memory, one son commented: "It's said that all men fear turning into their fathers: no fears here".

"Well done good and faithful servant", is what most Christians long to hear when they face God at the end of their lives. I have no doubt that this is the welcome my brother will have received.

Voices from the margins

Has a man, dressed as a bear, walking around a closed art gallery in the dead of night, something to say to us? At first sight, probably not. However, I was challenged by the Rt Revd James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, speaking on Radio 4.

He was talking about this year's Turner Prize, which was awarded to Mark Wallinger for his monumental political work 'State Britain'. In it he recreated in minute detail the one-man-protest against the Iraq war mounted by Brian Haw in Parliament Square. It took 15 people six months to make it. The jury commended Wallinger's work for combining "a bold political statement with art's ability to articulate fundamental human truths".

Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to rebuild the 40 metre installation and instead Mark Wallinger exhibited The Sleeper - a two and a half hour video showing the artist dancing around an empty art gallery in Berlin dressed as a Bear! Like me, you may think that, true to form, the Turner committee have delivered yet another bizarre decision, and that Wallinger has little to say.

However, as Bishop James pointed out, in the pages of the Old Testament we find several prophets who one minute appear little more than exhibitionists, acting out what they say they've been told by God, the next they're speaking profound words of astounding beauty that are regularly quoted 2,500 years later.

The same week that Bishop James delivered his message, Brian Eno (worked with Roxy Music, U2, David Bowie and countless others) was speaking about the death of classical composer Karl Heinz Stockhausen, known for his avante garde approach to the genre - whose work could be described as inaccessible, noise, unlistenable... Yet, according to Eno, this man had 'infected' not classical but popular music, and he cited Kraftwerk, Pink Floyd and Eno himself among the best known who would claim some influence from the unconventional German composer.

Eno said: "There are artists who make music one wants to hear and others who stake out new territory within which the rest of us can do new things. [Stockhausen] broadened the territory so much that it gave everybody else a lot more freedom than they had before."

So, the next time you see a man dressed as a bear, or hear someone trying to introduce helicopters into his latest musical work, don't write them off as nutters, or as irrelevant, because they might just be the ones who have the most profound and important things to say to us. As Bishop James said: "Pointing the way to peace is the work of prophets, poets, artists and even comedians. It cannot be just left to politicians and to priests. Why? Because although we too are committed to finding peace, we're in, and of, the institution. And sometimes, God knows, we need somebody outside to tell us what we look like."