Virtual Methodist

Prompted in part by the single word Abba" in Scott Cairn's "Nativity", a powerful verbal icon, which is Malcolm Guite's chosen poem for today in his seasonal devotional "Waiting on the Word."  Sleep, Amma Mary, You will need your strength For all that lies ahead. Fear not, for I am with you, Watching, adoring, Wondering, how Did this happen? Why me? Why not me? What will be His first word? Will I be Abba? Or will you tell him? Will he know it all? What does he know now, Beyond my embrace? All that I know now Is this child, Though not mine, Could not be More divine. Shalom

In this case it may be best to read the poem before the background narrative, because it perhaps doesn't head where it first seems... So here goes.. Not quite in deep midwinter The decree goes forth from on high: There is to be a nativity And I am Gabriel, Conveying the good news To the chosen mother, And the gang of shepherds, And other members of the cast, Including silent Joseph. But none is more important Than the duly selected girl. It’s my choice, I’m told, And so I cast my eye Over the candidates, Mindful of the parents And what they will say When their precious angel Isn’t the one duly favoured. Because this may be A seasonal story That few of them still Believe in, enduring Little longer than The other one about The fat, bearded man In a red suit, And endured by them all Only for photo ops And bragging rights; An elementary right Of passage; But there are few Good parts for girls, And those not chosen For the starring role, Are reduced to imagined Wives of imagined inn...

Was going to leave things fallow for a couple of days, but then I was pointed towards this story in the Daily Mail , peddling their usual brand of xenophobia, with tales of waves of Romanians ready to come and claim benefits in the UK... The journalists (and I use that word liberally) on that paper, which prides itself in standing up for the UK as a Christian country seem to have missed out huge chunks of the Nativity stories in Matthew and Luke... about there being no room in the inn, and Jesus' parents being asylum seekers...  But they're not too keen on lots of the Old Testament either... the bits that talk about looking after the poor and the alien... Anyway, it reminded me of this poem that I adapted a couple of years ago: No Room: We're Full There's no room in this country, we're full up In fact we're overcrowded, there's hardly room for us (well, for our cars, at any rate) so we really can't take you or anyone else Sorry...

Today the plan is that I get all my work done by tea time, then we settle down as a family to watch "Nativity" with Martin Freeman... I think it is my wife's attempt to get this particular Grinch geared up for the coming season. So I thought, given that so many of you loved the recent flurry of memes (yes... with the exception of you Mrs. "I'm too busy for that sort of thing, unlike you boys" Holt), that I would set you another one... Your ten favourite Christmas-related movies... Same rules apply... Post 10 and tag 10 people including me so I can keep track of the fun and games... You can post them as a comment here, on facebook or on your own blog... Here's mine... in no particular order except the first one which is unimpeachably the best Christmas movie ever... and if anyone wants to disagree, its pistols at dawn... 1) It's a Wonderful Life - The piece of Frank Capra magic starring James Stewart which was, mystifyingly, a flop on its cinema rele...

I was alerted to this via Ruth Gledhill's column on Christmas Eve and I thought for a moment that it was a spoof, but it is not and is proof-positive that the UK Border Agency is an irony (and perhaps compassion) free zone... Just check out the words that make up the tree... Those are just the sort of things you want to celebrate at Christmas... But it makes the perfect illustration for a short piece that I have written for this morning on Downtown radio. The story continues… and we come to another episode that you rarely see in Primary School Nativity plays… Jesus, Mary and Joseph the refugees in Egypt… Lets give thanks that Egypt didn’t have the same border controls as we have… If they did then Jesus and his parents may have been sent back to the tender loving care of Herod and his regime… Or locked away in a secure institution like those children of refugees and asylum seekers who were refused a visit from Saint Nicholas at the beginning of December… Or reduced to begging on t...

Today is for most people in Britain the Boxing Day public holiday, deferred from the day after Christmas by the intervening weekend, but on the churches calendar it is the so called “feast of the Holy Innocents.” The massacre of the infant boys of Bethlehem on the orders of Herod the Great may seem an inappropriate cause for feasting… but it reflects the ancient teaching that, in effect, those children were, unwittingly, the first Christian martyrs… But it is a part of the story of Christmas that is quickly glossed over today. There are few carols that refer to it, and it rarely gets a dramatic re-enactment in the nativity play… if it did then we would have to put an over 18 certificate on it (actually there is a very funny scene depicting this episode in the recent movie "Nativity" that I wrote about last week... but I hope I never see the same in our local Primary School). But meanwhile, as we continue to feast on the leftovers from Friday, the massacre of the innocents go...

If the religious elite of the day had written the script for Jesus’ birth, he would have been born to a respectable married couple (either Pharisee or Sadducee depending on which brand of religion you asked); he would probably have still been born in Bethlehem, because that was in keeping with the prophecies, but he would have had a proper cradle to lie in rather than a manger. And the first visitors would NOT have been shepherds… I mean, everyone knew that shepherds were ritually unclean and low down the social pecking order… So what if Jesus’ ancestor David had been a shepherd… God had raised him above all that… And as for the Magi… There is no way that foreign, pagan astrologers would have been allowed within a mile of the Jewish Messiah. But are we any better? How quick are we to judge children by their social background? Make assumptions about people because of their jobs? Lump people together according to stereotypes of race and religion. Or presume that because Jesus is the Way ...

Life is a little busy at the moment... hence the paucity of posts. On Friday it was so busy that my wife and I drew lots to decide who would go to the local primary school's Nativity play... I won... And so I went, a little reluctantly to see again that familiar story... Yet an hour later I left refreshed and renewed for all that I had to do throughout that day... It was a relatively traditional rendering of the subject matter, all be it with modern music and no "Away in a Manger..." Every child in the room was dressed appropriately... Girls as angels (some complete with feathered wings), and boys as shepherds (as the headmaster said, there would be no dishes dried in Ballybeen that morning because every dishcloth was in Brooklands Primary School, adorning the heads of the shepherds) and they sang all the songs with great gusto. The "star" performers all carried off their parts with great confidence (although paradoxically Herod was a little hesitant), and some ...

As I have already stated in a post here I was in Munich recently and was astounded by the huge range of nativity sets on display. But one that I didn't see, or perhaps didn't actually recognise as a nativity set is this "hand-painted" minimalist version by German artist Oliver Fabel. I was alerted to it by Bess over at Faith Central . But to a large extent, this, in a very straightforward way, is doing to Jesus and his story, what people have tried to do from the time of the incarnation. Fit him, and everyone else around him into a nice neat box... Make him conform to a wider design of our own making... But the truth is, Jesus didn't fit... There was no room for him in the inn and there is no room for him within our boxes, or colour-coordinated designs. Shalom

For those who are looking for a thoroughly Biblical, yet practical gift this Christmas... “When the time had fully come..” Ding! “God sent forth His Son...” (Galatians 4: 4) Cheers

Just been to the last of umpteen Children's Christmas Shows that I've been attending this year, some in my role as a minister, and one as a father, and the good thing is that this year I haven't yet had to sing "Away in a manger" whereas in days gone by I would have sung it 14 times by December 3rd! Things really have moved on - instead of the same nativity story and the bog-standard carols of years gone by, now every year-group competes to find the show with the cleverest twist on the Christmas story, and the most upbeat songs - so we now have grumpy shepherds, silly sheep, singing stars and all manner of interpretations of what the word C.H.R.I.S.T.M.A.S. stands for. Of course, just like the old-style nativities, these new ones are enhanced in ways their authors never anticipated - by elves spending the entire performance with their finger up their nose; or by the Angel Gabriel tucking her wings into her knickers in the inevitable toilet stop immediately before ...

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...

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?