In the Darkness

IN THE DARKNESS

It is in the darkness 

that he comes:

an open stable

a dangerous garden

an empty cave

We barely see the shimmer

and fail to recognise 

the challenge

we just as easily 

walk away

unmoved, unrealising

that it is in the darkness

that life is changed

Discursive terrorism!

I have some sympathy with the lovely British comedian Jason Manford who got caned by Facebook (shame on them) for declaring that these 'idealists'  are in actual fact cowards.
To be fair he said a bit more than that but I don't think his observations were misplaced

To open fire on unarmed civilians, is not bravery and idealism.

It is total and utter cowardice

It is bullying and thuggery.

I imagine the prophet Mohamed, peace be upon him, would be deeply ashamed of the evil that is perpetrated in his name. 

I have been interested about my own reflections, and those who live hand-in-glove with me about what this means.

As I drove into Adelaide yesterday (quietly on Sunday at about 8 a.m.)  I thought about how we might feel about such awfulness. Then cast my mind back 24 hours....the Christmas Pageant.

My granddaughter (10 months old ) was present....and loved it. 

200-300K people present just celebrating their community life....what if a bomb? or a gunman..?  it doesn't bear thinking about.   But my conversations led me to believe I was not the only one who thought this thought!

So I don't emir from J Manford's sentiment

Equally well, as my eldest daughter and I were practising speaking French, we spoke about the Tour Eiffel.   How it had been evacuated; and how easily three or four well-placed bombers could have taken it out.....shudder!

Surely these mad boys ( for such they are...BOYS....will blog about this shortly) don't want to live in a world in which families cannot have lunch together, or friends laugh with each other....

Having been a boy, I know that boys are not that bright!   They get enthused. But we are a bit thick!

Easy targets for unscrupulous propagandists who convert their stupidity to misguided 'enthusiasm'...which is a most dangerous thing!

hot & cross

The next sign that the world derives so much of its celebration from the faith and yet hasn't got a clue about it has appeared in the shops. Hot Cross Buns.

Mind you Easter eggs have been there for two weeks.

Having just got over Christmas, Lent has not even begun and already we are being offered hot-cross buns, a food proper to Holy Week. (around the end of March). The spices symbolise the preparation of the body of the dead Jesus.

You can of course buy modern HC buns without any spice, specially for the bland. What's the point? They should be called what they are. Rolls!

You can even buy chocolate HCB. This seems to me almost profane.

Woolies have for many years called them Red Cross buns, at least the ones I saw this afternoon were called Hot Cross Buns.

No tides will be turned back now. What a world we live in!

eating..praying... and... loving

I read the populist book by Elizabeth Gilbert.."Eat Pray Love" recently and preached about it at Christmas (here)

Because Christmas is about God in the ordinary stuff of life we do well to remember that it is the ordinary eating together that is so important. One of the sad things about the breakdown of the relationship between S & I is the loss of the daily opportunity to sit down with other people at least once a day. Turn the TV off and, however briefly, often ungratefully, maybe testily to actually have to try and converse.

Christmas Day we try to do this. I was interested that the three travellers spent their day together feasting in London. (They walked to Buckingham Palace in the afternoon...good thing to do!) and cooking for each other. The fruits of their travels. Belgian Chocolates, little French things. Lvely roasts. They also made our favourite dessert Apple Crumble...and they were having trifle and Glühwein. There is a lot of stuff going on here. Recreating childhood Christmas, but sharing time with the blood relatives (even though they drive each other wild... how will K and I go for two weeks in Asia) Making some of their own traditions. Reminiscences of stuff passed down through the generations. Seems quite important.

Tis the season

I am not one to bemoan the light-hearted spirit of Christmas. There is a big theological point to be made about the real world in which we live. Which is as much about frippery like Jingle Bells, as it is about the ontological existentialism of perceived reality (otherwise known as 'anything can mean anything if you want it to').

1. So the other Friday night there were the youngest S Clark and I crossing the University footbridge when suddenly dozens, probably a couple of hundred Santas appeared from nowhere.

It is, as I say, the season to be jolly. Wish the photos were a bit better, but had to use the phone rather than the camera.

Shortbread

This recipe is not so much 'traditional' as straightforward or simple. It is no fail

Here is the recipe:
200 gms plain flour
200 gms butter
100 gms icing sugar
100 gms cornflour

Let butter soften to room temp
cream butter and sugar
add sifted flours
roll to 1/4" thick and cut into desired shapes
Bake in oven 350F (175-180) for 15 mins
Sprinkle with castor sugar when warm

My 'hints' are: allow butter to soften naturally (not in microwave) and if making gluten free replace plain flour with rice flour and make sure cornflour is gluten free.

The Christmas creep

I can already feel the creep of Christmas (only 2 months to go on Sunday). In trying to organise the next few weeks you suddenly discover that everything is interrupted by these end of year things. You can't seem to get a clear week because of weddings, partings....anything! And then once you get passesd December 3 or 4 it's all downhill from there.

Pineapple Fritter

One commentator notes on one of my recent posts that "Grace doesn't appear to have lasted the week!"
Cryptic...but this could mean many things
I guess it flows from my original post about various small graces (here); though it is posted against my comments about Howard receiving the medal of "Freedom" from that great Freedom Fighter...George Bush...(here) or maybe it's just a reflection on the hideous state of affairs in Gaza.
So I just make my response a bit more obvious.....I think that part of the issue for the spiritual person is not that we should think that "grace" is an invitation to be pathetic, and to overlook the faults of others; to demur and be sweetly nice in the face of other people's appalling garbage, (like ranking Howard alongside Nelson Mandela) . But rather that we should recognise that (like a baby born) God touches our world more profoundly than we think...but goes unnoticed, and/or that we fritter away God's abundant life.
But I do say....
1. I am not gracious to JH... true I have found it difficult for some time to see him as anything other than the supreme political opportunist. The victim of his own hubris. Who would do anything to stay in power, and bend in any direction if it would get him re-elected.
2. The Gaza situation. There is always a deep sadness about the sort of gross abuse that is war (on both sides)
3. On a smaller scale our life fritters the grace away so easily, I guess the call to the spiritual person is to try and hang on to this and to recognise it in our midst. The message of Christmas

'Tis the season

I seem faintly ahead of myself this year, maybe the fact that circumstances of the last few weeks have caused an ongoing sorting out of stuff (still a long way to go). I even wondered if we should put the Christmas Tree up this weekend...Advent not yet begun...I was reminded that Fr Christmas did arrive in Adelaide last weekend...but we'll leave it for a couple of weeks.
So here is my annual blog about the jacaranda, since I saw a wonderful specimen yesterday, which sends the thrill of the late Spring surging through my veins.
Reminding that exams are happening (T was feeling glum last night and I couldn't cheer him up....Ahh well they're NOT all over he said....still a week to go! I allowed him the indulgence of feeling sorry for himself)
Any way the order is almost ready for the Carol Service, there is a deep sense that if we don't do this or that now, then in four weeks time it will be too late!

Bizarre thoughts of Christmas

The great German Christmas carol which we used to sing as children

O du frohliche!

O du selige!

gnadenbringende Weihnachtszeit

.Weltging verloren,

Christ war geboren:

Freue, freue dich, o Christenheit!

was causing me to muse during the early hours of this sleep starved morn.

Do you think the British got it wrong...it would perhaps be translated

O you joyful

O you blessed

grace bringing (gnadebringende) Christmas

(into) A going lost woprld

Christ was born.

Rejoice, rejoice O Christendom

Do you think that they mistranslated "Gnadenbringende" mistaking it for 'gingerbread'.....thus explaining all these curious (yet delightfully tasty) Christmas treats which don't seem to have much to do with Christmas?

Any ways it just shows you how delirious I was by 4 a.m. (ity's now 8.15)...three hours sleep, thumping head and off to say the Holy Mystery...again (6th time in 48 hours)

Christmas Crap

Amidst everything else that goes on at this time of year today December 6th is Saint Nicholas Day, known to us of more Germanic Origin as Santa Claus...I looked around our house the other day and saw that there were more statues of him than of the stable at Bethlehem!
None of them looked like the venerable icon pictured here most like the joke at the foot of the page.
What we miss of course is that Saint Nicholas is quite a good sort of role model. A Bishop known for secret charity...dropping gold coins down the chimney of a house so that the three daughters would not be sold into slavery...yes that's what those chocolate coins are all about.
Most of the "crap" (and I use this term advisedly!) of Christmas is like this, there is good and challenging insight in what is being proposed. Like isn't it good that we live in a world where children are not sold into slavery..or do we? (here if you can bear to put down your mince pie)
And maybe we should be trying to think of just one thing we can do this Christmas that might not be me-focussed!
Otherwise it is just a whole lot of crap isn't it?

Countdown spectacular

When I was a boy I was fascinated by the entry in the calendar that says of December 17 "O Sapientia". No one ever really referred to it or did anything on it.
It was only a dozen or so years later that I found it marked the beginning of the earnest Christmas preparation....and each day has a special song (or antiphon) to sing in Evening Prayer before the Magnificat which is sung (or used to be sung) each day during that service.
Welll....to cut a long story short these begin on December 17 with O Sapientia...O Wisdom and culminate on Christmas Eve with O Emmanuel...for obvious reasons.
So the earnest countdown begins today. The Blessed J who loves (or loveth) to sing plainsong will enjoy singing O Sapientia today so the music is provided.
I wonder what other O's there should be [the traditional ones are powerful see here if you are inclined).
But I think also of:
O Jeff!...who will probably not see another Christmas and who I must see tomorrow.
O Carol!...the carol service tonight needs to come out of my mind and into reality
O Dear!...yes there are still half a dozen presents to buy and I will have to brave O Traffic! and O Parking! at O Westfield!
O misericordiae!...have not yet connected with my confessor
O joy! O rapture! O love unbounded! (G&S fans will understand)...it's is such a hoot of a season. Really fun and really serious.

Chris's funeral

I left home at 10, went to the dentist, had an hour to kill so had a coffee, said prayers in the shopping centre (always a good thing to do); bought a copy of the "God Delusion". Had lunch with my deanery colleagues. very nice and pleasnat. And popped back to see that the little one was OK (12 episodes of Will & Grace later....she was supposed to be cleaning her room)
The funeral began at 2 and the Church was packed and into two overflow spaces as well.
It went well. He was a remarkable gift of a person. A man who found out when he was 17 that he could easily die and decided to throw himself into living. This so electrified those whose lives he touched that they lived a bit better too. Very Christlike.
It makes one wonder why we don't throw ourselves properly into life, and why we always presume that we have tomorrow.

A good thing to do

I went tonight to share in a Christmas Solace Service. A service for those who will find Christmas difficult for all sorts of reasons. One of my friends was there who lost a baby early in the year. I was conscious as we sang innocuous Christmas Carols how a mother and father who cannot hold their little baby must feel when they hear the words of these carols.
R's eyes caught mine as we sang "Where a mother laid her baby" and I quickly looked away.
But these carols are unremitting in their simple sentiment that can rip us apart so unknowingly.
Round the virgin mother and child, all is not calm and all is not too bright.
and the stars in the bright sky look down for R on an empty cradle.
It is unremitting!
She fortunately is a good thing and processes these things very well. But I was conscious as we lit candles for causes known and unknown that so many women came up and lit candles. How many had lost children I do not know. But Christmas exposes our sadness as well as our joy.

Besetting sadness

Blogging seems like a trivial exercise in comparison with Chris's death. However I suggest that even making that observation which helps us to properly contextualise both things is worthwhile.
I am deeply saddened by it all. Terrified like all parents of the death of one's own child, it is unimaginable to think what Steve and Judy and Michael must be going through.
Steve wrote yesterday that Judy wrapped Chris in the special quilt that had been made for him while he was in hospital and I was reminded (on this her feast day) of how another Mother wrapped her son when she took his body from the soldiers.
No mother should have to do it. Too many do have to.

Resisting temptation

It's always challenging to continue a stream of blogging, but I have resisted many temptations this week

• I have resisted the temptation to blog about either Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard. And to say how there is a real danger that amidst all the hoo-hah about generational change, the real problem is that it may just be more of the same
  
• I have not even touched Australia's famous Test Cricket victory. Or to say how diufficult it is for a "former Pom" (and I use that expression advisedly, I think after spendiong 40 years here I am entitled to no longer be a Pom. Though it was interesting how the visit of relatives recently brings a slide back into former accentual patterns.
• Further to that I have resisted commenting on my current reading Mother Tongue by that amazing dilletante Bill Bryson , who seems to know enough about most things to keep me (and others) interested (some humourous stuff here)
• I certainly have resisted talking about the weather. Even though there have been four seasons in one week and it's going to be 38 tomorrow.
• I have resisted the temptation (because it only just crossed my mind) to remind those who need to be shriven to go to the box...because I forgot I was supposed to be going last night!!
• I certainly resisted the temptation (Vicky) to talk about Borat, which I did go to see. And I agree with David Stratton's comments that for a film that was 1 hour and10 minutes, it was about 60 minutes too long. And I am afraid I am too much of a rememberer of Auschwitz to find any anti-Semitism funny.
• I have resisted the temptation to discuss Fiji, or how it is remarkable that tourists coming back seem to have been largely unaffected by the coup.
• And I have definitely not talked about Christmas, Which is only 18 days away.
  

here we go

The 1st December is a sombre reminder:

• Where did the last 11 months go
• How much is there still to do before Christmas
• This last week seems to have been so busy and I have done so many things
• And yet all sorts of other stuff just hasn't got done
• The weather has been hot and cold
• everything is still parched and dry
• i had a funeral of a patriarch
• i've been on retreat in daily life
• i've slept average to badly
• today is my day off and there is a heap of stuff to do
• next week looks as though it will be more of the same.....aaah life!
  

Cricket, poinsettias, Christmas

I had never seen a poinsettia before I came to Australia. And where we lived they seemed to bloom in the winter. So there were poinsettias for Pentecost (June) which was good because the Pentecost colour is red.
However in Mexico, poinsettias are a Christmas flower. Christmas of course being in Winter in Guadlajara!
Aunty (referred to below) gave us one as a gift of thanks for our recent little time together.
In this age where times and seasons no longer matter we often see the poinsettia (though there may be two different types). After some thought I decided to risk planting it in a "filtered sunlight" position in the garden.
Other signs of Christmas are the cricket. Soon the Adelaide Test will begin from our beautiful Adelaide Oval.
The Jacaranda have done their bit to let us know the exam season is ending. And best of all it's in the high 30s for the rest of the week.

Christmas must be a month away tomorrow!!!