Back in the 1980s I heard of a church that was in the ground floor of a multi-storey building. Allegedly one Sunday moring as they sang "How lovely on the mountains... our God reigns" water began to pour through the ceiling... it may be apocryphal, but it led to it being dubbbed the umbrella hymn.
And it is one of those listed in the additional hymns for Advent list in BPW. Not always the most singable lyrics - who can forget having to sing "on his shoulders, on his shoul-oul-oul-oul-ders, on his shoul-oulders he bore our shame"?
BPW has two versions - the more singable four verse one (without the shoulders) and the longer, orignal version (with added shoulders warbles)
It was a hymn of its time, I think, and certainly for me has only positive associations (including indoor rain and warbly shoulders). A valiant attempt to make a hymn of part of Isaiah 52, and really more for Passiontide than Advent, it is nonetheless worth another airing (this version shoulder of lamb not included!!)
This year's offering under the banner "Christmas Starts with Christ" is dividing opinion among those are are already comitted followers of Jesus aka Christians.
Some are delighted to see it taking on the big retailers and playing them at their own game whilst others are disappointed that it is too white middle class and lacking in prophetic edge.
See what you think:
That God can speak through this, I have no doubt - but I sense God may speak through other adverts also.
I like the baby's chuckle at the end - this reminder that Jesus was a real baby, not a doll or a no-crying-he-makes lines in a song.
I am amused that the 'church' is using a Frankie Goes to Hollywood tune whilst Sainsbury's are using an old redemption hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms"
I'd have prefered a less opulent beginning and a more authentically middle-eastern looking Mary & Joseph in a less clinical stable... and perhaps that's the nub of my disquiet... I'm not entirely sure what this says to the poor and marginalised people for whom Jesus clearly had huge concern.
Perhaps the key is who the advert is aimed at, and how they will recieve it, not how I or any other Christian insider feel about it. If it sparks a new or renewed interest in Jesus in the heart or mind of one person, then it's done its job.
BPW 179 "Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown" has survived the worst excesses of the, often unhelpful, re-working to modern English that has resulted in odd variants of many better known carols.
Strictly, only the first two verses relate to Christmas, but the recurrent theme of Jesus being unwelcome, unaccepted and even homeless carries through the rest of the hymn, which works it's way, very swiftly, through his entire ministry.
No room to be born, nowhere permanent to live during his earthly ministry, abandoned at calvary...
This hymn is explicitly a personal response to the despised and rejected Jesus - there IS space in MY heart for you.
Is there, though? Or are we so cynical and world weary that the story no longer moves us?
And, I wonder, just how much room to I allow Jesus to occupy in my heart? Who and what is jostling for my love, my embrace? And, if Jesus comes to us in other people, who is it that I rejct, and in so-doing reject him?
Hmmm. I love this song, but today it feels very challenging!
The electric keyboard accompaniment on this recording is not the greatest thing to listen to, but the words surely transcend that:
Last night I invited a few selected Holly-fans to join me in celebrating her life - a kind of wake/purvey that involved a 'slideshow' of nearly 400 photos, some human-Dreamies, and a toast to her drunk in pink, sparkling grape juice. Lots of laughter, memories and love.
It was a lovely, gentle evening, giving a sense of closure (to me anyway).
One person gave me this poem, which is rather lovely:
Poem For Cats
And God asked the feline spirit Are you ready to come home? Oh, yes, quite so, replied the precious soul And, as a cat, you know I am most able To decide anything for myself.
Are you coming then? asked God. Soon, replied the whiskered angel But I must come slowly For my human friends are troubled For you see, they need me, quite certainly.
But don't they understand? asked God That you'll never leave them? That your souls are intertwined. For all eternity? That nothing is created or destroyed? It just is....forever and ever and ever.
Eventually they will understand, Replied the glorious cat For I will whisper into their hearts That I am always with them I just am....forever and ever and ever.
Every now and then there emerges a preaching-preference about mentioning the cross at Christmas.
There was a time when, as an over-reaction to saccharine sweet slop, preachers emphasised the inevitable link with the events of Calvary. In a justified endeavour to move beyond "little Lord Jesus asleep in the hay" who can be boxed up with the tinsel and forgotten about until next year, we pretty much denied the mystery of a helpless baby, totally dependent on human parents for well-being as God's chosen means of incarnation.
More recently, and with chastened cheeriness, the move has been back to letting the story stand on its own, skipping past that nasty Herod stuff, painting over the differences between Luke and Matthew, and somehow cleaning up the messyness of an illegitimate birth, in a back street, in a borrowed room.
Is there no middle ground?
First of the 'cross reference index' hymns for Advent use is BPW 156 (from the Christmas section) Born in the night, Mary's child:
With some key changes (from E flat to G and back again) it's not my faovurite to play as my fingers and brain get confused! Nonetheless, it is a lovely hymn that holds together the cradle and the cross in a way that is gentle enough not to spoil the fleeting warmth of Christmas without dumbing down the horror of Calvary.
I have vague recollections that once upon a time as well as the line "born in borrowed room" there was a verse that ended "laid in a borrowed tomb" but I can find no evidence of that.
In birth, and in death, 'borrowed rooms' are part of our experience - hospitals, mortuaries, chapels of rest, crematoria... places we visit for a reason as we journey on in our own lives. Perhaps what this song captures most eloquently is the way in which birth and death, death and birth are intertwined, and find their fullest expression in Mary's child...
