Yikes! I am wondering quite why I agreed to be the after dinner speaker at the Christmas Lunch(eon) of a local men-only club whose modus operandum consists in listening to erudite speakers on topics with grandiose titles.  Of course I agreed to it, becuase this year the president is one of the Gatherers, a good friend and someone who trusts me not to speak utter twaddle.  But it all feels very, very scary!

Anyway, speech is written, and by the wonders of technology I can post it here to appear when I am there, so here goes...

After Dinner Speech

Do you believe in Father Christmas? 

Do you believe in Christmas? 

And if so, in what do you believe?

Do we still have the capacity to imagine that it might just be possible that flying reindeer could circumnavigate the globe in one night? 

Or have we grown so worldly wise and jaded that, were it not for the prospect of some good food and pleasurable company, we would discard the whole thing?

Can we suspend our disbelief just for a few minutes?

Can we travel, if only in our imaginations, to times past and discover afresh the wonder and joy this season offers?

Almost everyone loves a good carol, and well-known words of Christina Rossetti give us a framework to engage in some remembering and reflecting …

In the bleak mid-winter,

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak mid-winter,

Long ago.

Well, not that long ago really – less than fifty years for me, anyway…

Snow so deep we feared it would overflow our wellingtons on the walk to school

Little bottles of milk turned to ice, thawed on enormous cast iron radiators

And the hope that there would still be time to build snowmen and throw snowballs before returning to stuffy classrooms that smelled of drying mittens

To rehearse songs

And liberally spread glue and glitter on cockeyed Christmas cards

Eyes bright with the excitement of it all…

And as night fell, the surreptitious glance out of the window lest Father Christmas might just be checking up…

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him,

Nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away

When He comes to reign:

In the bleak mid-winter

A stable-place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty,

Jesus Christ.

Now there's a philosophical conundrum to wrestle with!

A deity whose existence could not be contained or sustained by the entire cosmos

Found in a small outhouse

In comparison to this, belief in a jolly man in red (or green) who slides down chimneys (and up again)

With a huge sack overflowing with gifts is as nothing!

We sat there, first desk of second violins, scraping away the alto line on the carols

The vicar – or was it one of the other local clergy – tried to engage

Sullen rows of teenagers who really had no time for Santa or Jesus…

Well save for those of us, probably judged a little odd, who studied 'O' level RE

Dutifully read our Gideon Bibles and refused, refused to conform

'And it came to pass that in those days…'

Still the snow fell deep, still we snowballed, still we hung our stockings

Almost as long ago.

Angels and archangels

May have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim

Throngèd the air;

But His mother only,

In her maiden bliss,

Worshipped the Beloved

With a kiss.

Enormous brown eyes peered out from a coffee coloured face

A blue scarf sat awry on her tight afro-curls

Mary cradled the plastic baby Jesus in her five year-old hands

As life-hardened adults surreptitiously reached into their pockets for a tissue

To wipe away unbidden tears

In day room, in a care home, the crinkled faces crowned with wisps of white hair

Came alive with smiles as the familiar strains sounded in the over-heated air

Weak, ragged, with dubious tuning, voices combined across the decades:

'Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head.'

And I, minister now, felt the years melt away like snow on a dike

Recalled the tingle of cold in my toes walking to school,

The scratchy tinsel of the halo of third angel from the left

The disbelief of my peers that I still believed, still went to church

And I knew, as I had first known as a six year-old child that it was so

What can I give Him,

Poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd,

I would bring a lamb;

If I were a wise man,

I would do my part;

Yet what I can I give Him-

Give my heart.

Maybe you believe.

Maybe you don't.

Maybe you'd like to believe

Maybe you can't

We, of course, are not poor

We are wealthy, well educated and well fed

We have access to emporia piled high with consumer goods

And if that fails to suffice, the internet and gifts cards will cover most eventualities

But at the end of the day, nothing has changed…

Squinty cards festooned with glitter

Stockings hung in hopeful expectation

The voices of children, the dewy eyes of old age

Rekindle our belief, our hope,

And above all remind us that the best gift we can give, or receive, this Christmas is love.

I love this from the Muslim Council of Britain

I also love this which is clever, creative and evangellically Christian

Take a look at them, I hope you love them too.

Annunciation

by Gwyneth Lewis

When first he painted the Virgin the friar filled

the apce around her with angels' bright wings,

scalloped and plated, with skies of gold,

heavy with matter.  He thought that he knew

that heaven was everywhere.  He grew

older, wiser and found that he drew

more homely rooms with pots and beds,

but lavished his art on soft furnishings

and the turn of the waiting angel's wings

(still gorgeous with colour and precious dust).

Much later, he sensed that his God had withdrawn,

was spacious.  On smaller frescoes he painted less,

let wall be wall, but drew in each lawn

the finer detail of sorrel and weeds.

Still later, he found his devotion drawn

to nothing - shadows hinted at hidden rooms,

at improbable arches, while angel's news

shattered the Virgin, who became a view

As open as virtue, her collapsing planes

easy and vacant as the evening breeze

that had brought a plain angel to his grateful knees

Fra Angelico c. 1437 - 1446

(the friar of the poem)

So we've reached the end of another week of rather dark poems!  It has been interesting to ponder the responses of those who have read them - some have enjoyed revisting poems they last read many moons ago, others have fund the 'darkness' oppressive.  I suppose in some ways, it reflects our expectations of Advent, and the way that it has shifted from its dark focus on 'the four last things' (death, judgement, heaven and hell) or on the Second Coming (with equal measure of despair and destruction) to a saccharine build-up to Christmas festivities.  The idea that our forebears would have fasted and seen this as a penitential season is unknown to many, to most; it is scary how many churches either ignore the great Advent themes (and they are many and varied) or start singing Christmas carols on December 1st.

Anyway, yesterday was the bright Gaudete Sunday, I wore my pink suit (pink!  me!  yes!) and we had a wonderful evening carol service with a children's choir to augment and counterpoint our adult voices.  It is still dark, but the light is growing... soon it will be Christmas!

Here's one of the poems we used last night which seems to capture some of this waiting and hoping and darkness and light...

Jesus is Coming

by Lucy Berry

Jesus is coming.  But not yet.

First there must be water, blood and milk.

Jesus is coming.  But not yet.

First there must be blessings, shame and outrage.

Jesus is coming.  But not yet.

First there must be journeys, vists, exiles.

Jesus is coming.  But not yet.

First there must be terror, torture and death.

Ah, Lord, hurry to be born.

Ah, Lod, hurry from womb and tomb to save us.

I was reading about rationalism,
the kind of thing we do up north
in early winter, where the sun
leaves work for the day at 4:15

Maybe the world is intelligible
to the rational mind;
and maybe we light the lamps at dusk
for nothing...

Then I heard the wings overhead.

The cats and I chased the bat
in circles - living room, kitchen,
pantry, kitchen, living room...
At every turn it evaded us

like the identity of the third person
in the Trinity: the one
who spoke through the prophets,
the one who astounded Mary
by suddenly coming near.