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Showing posts with the label Bethlehem

Phoning Home

Joseph is speaking into a mobile phone. Hello, Mother, it’s Joseph… Joseph… your son! Yes, I know it’s been a long time since I last rang, but I’m afraid I’ve been rather busy… (Joseph looks rather bored) Yes Mother, I’m still here… Oh, I’m fine, fine… Mary? She’s fine… The carpentry business… Yes, it’s fine… Look mother, I think I ought to come round and see you sometime soon… Oh, it’s no trouble, I’m actually in Bethlehem for the census… Ah, well, of course I would have stayed with you, but I, um, knew how busy you’d be with everyone coming home for the census, without the three of us landing on you… Did I say three? I did!? I was talking about Mary, me and the… um… donkey… That’s it… No its OK we got a room… well more of a stable really… Oh now, Mother, don’t get upset… I only said stable because it’s full of straw and animals and… (sniffs air) things. No what I should have said is “Stable-Like building…” extremely stable-like! Mother, are you sitting down? Well, its just that I...

Child Protection

Just completed a day of Child Protection training at the Ulster Hospital where I work as chaplain, and I'm tired, so this is more of a brief question than a developed comment... When is Child Protection more about Worker Protection or Organisation protection? But, while we are at it, would social services have called a case conference about a certain Jesus Bar Joseph, born in Bethlehem, Judea to a pair of feckless parents from Nazareth in Galilee?