Happy Christmas!

Eve

T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the shop,

The computers were whirring; they never did stop.

The power was on and the temperature right,

In hopes that the input would feed back that night.

The system was ready, the programme was coded,

And memory drums had been carefully loaded;

While adding a Christmasy glow to the scene,

The lights on the console, flashed red, white and green.

When out in the hall there arose such a clatter,

The programmer ran to see what was the matter.

Away to the hallway he flew like a flash,

Forgetting his key in his curious dash.

He stood in the hallway and looked all about,

When the door slammed behind him, and he was locked out.

Then, in the computer room what should appear,

But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer;

And a little old man, who with scarcely a pause,

Chuckled: "My name is Santa...the last name is Claus."

The computer was startled, confused by the name,

Then it buzzed as it heard the old fellow exclaim:

"This is Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen,

And Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen."

With all these odd names, it was puzzled anew;

It hummed and it clanked, and a main circuit blew.

It searched in its memory core, trying to think;

Then the multi-line printer went out on the blink.

Unable to do its electronic job,

It said in a voice that was almost a sob:

"Your eyes - how they twinkle - your dimples so merry,

Your cheeks so like roses, your nose like a cherry,

Your smile - all these things, I've been programmed to know,

And at data-recall, I am more than so-so;

But your name and your address (computers can't lie),

Are things that I just cannot identify.

You've a jolly old face and a little round belly,

That shakes when you laugh like a bowlful of jelly;

My scanners can see you, but still I insist,

Since you're not in my programme, you cannot exist!"

Old Santa just chuckled a merry "ho, ho",

And sat down to type out a quick word or so.

The keyboard clack-clattered, its sound sharp and clean,

As Santa fed this "data" to the machine:

"Kids everywhere know me; I come every year;

The presents I bring add to everyone's cheer;

But you won't get anything - that's plain to see;

Too bad your programmers forgot about me."

Then he faced the machine and said with a shrug,

"Merry Christmas to All!" as he pulled out its plug.

A Night Before Christmas

Wycombe was not a great place to be last night, especially if you were a motorist.  It started snowing soon after 2:00pm and was still snowing heavily four hours later.

And so it was that we were asked to open our Church as an Emergency Rest Centre for people stranded by the snowy roads and icy hills. Roads normally busy with traffic had only pedestrians struggling between cars and vans abandoned at the roadside.  Read about it here.

Through to 2:00 am people arrived.  Some walked in as though they were arriving for a meeting, some arrived as though they had trekked from the Arctic, one or two looked as though they had been mistakenly delivered by emergency ambulance to us instead of the hospital.

Thirty five people slept for the night at 'Hotel Union'!  About 20 others came through the doors and were fortified and warmed for the next stage of their epic journey home.  Never has the town or Church witnessed the need to be a Town Centre Snow Shelter before!

God, on the other hand, seemed less surprised and to be working to a nicely visible plan (his plans are often invisible of course).

My colleague Pastor Tim has just recently taken on a role as Police Chaplain, and this gave us goodwill and communication from the outset.

Our Church Administrator has been a Hotel Manager and so Calvin might be described as the perfect Staff Member in the circumstances!  He's also a great cook, so the motley collection of material available for Breakfast was transformed into good stuff on the plate.

Our Youth Worker Matt, shortly to depart for New Zealand, was still present, and able to give us confidence with the teens who arrived.  Two of them stayed overnight with us, away from their families.

One of our members, having been inspired to do Street Pastor work, responded immediately and came in to help at this opportunity.

When I was sliding down the hill to help, I heard the familiar voice of one of my Elders in the sea of darkly clad walkers struggling up the hill in the opposite direction.  When we met, he immediately joined me and ended up staying and working with us through the night (moral of story, beware of passing Pastors!)

As our premises host the Wycombe Winter Night Shelter  we had  a good supply of air beds and a magnificent supply of blankets and sheets.

We thank God for His planning, which appears to have greatly exceeded that of others.  He even planned it in his instructions to the first Christian Churches - Share with God's people who are in need. Practise hospitality.  And he'd said it previously to his ancient covenant people too - The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am Yahweh, your God. (Leviticus 19:33,34).

Brrrrrr

Tonight we had our second slot for carol singing at our local shopping centre. We understood that we would be joined by another church but, because they wanted to survive until Christmas, they didn't arrive.

Our survival was threatened by the temperature - which was below freezing - and the somewhat inexplicable design of the centre whereby the roof runs out before the shops do. This afforded us a site with a wind ambience resembling the deck of a ship, and a floor temperature mirroring a polar research station.

Cinema-goers hurried by wondering what we were doing there (they would have wondered all the more had they been able to identify our average age underneath our multidinous layers of clothes.) A Shopping Centre operative looked over at us, wondering what we were doing there. On another evening he may have checked our credentials, but tonight he was content that the only offence we might be committing was against our circulatory systems. We wondered what we were doing there. We were, in short, a wonder. A bone-chilled, finger-frozen, teeth-chattering wonder.

Health and Safety considerations would have demanded that we instruct any member of the public who had stopped to listen to us to move on lest they sued us for their frostbite - this might even have been a consideration if someone removed their gloves to accept a leaflet.  In the event no-one was irresponsible enough to risk their well-being by stopping.

With a neat sense of timing one of my aunts had sent a Christmas card that arrived this morning.  It pictured a brightly-lit village church.  In a blizzard.  The choirboys are walking through the snow toward the sanctuary.  The very essence of Christmas, I thought, when I opened the card.

But now I know it is a fraud.

You can stand in the freezing cold.  You can stand and sing carols. 

What you can't do, is do both at once . . .

Hallelujah (Silent Version!)

My daughter sang this peerless piece of sacred music in her school Christmas Concert. It was great.

But the world is made up of two groups of people. Those who've seen this version, and those who haven't . . .

Copenhagen

As the United Nations Climate Change Conference descends gently and inevitably into inter-nation political squabbling, we can only pity those unpolitical scientists who claimed this was the 'most important conference in the history of the world.'

Bombs in Baghdad have simultaneously reminded us that Climate Change takes an early back seat when power takes over. Especially power expressed in war and violence. Tanks running on biofuel? Eco-friendly bombs delivered by low energy bombers? Nuclear warheads that preserve rare species? Dolphin-friendly depth charges?

This is the kind of Conference that only happens in peace time. It has laudable aims but there will come future days and places when human beings are so busy trying to kill each other that the fate of delicate ecosystems will be the last thing on their minds.

The chief planetary problem is in the heart of its dominant species. A heart that doesn't always seek peace, but always seeks more things for itself and its interests. The problem is more Greed than Green.

Christmas, because it points to how God changes souls, matters a lot more than Copenhagen. And the humblest conference, or Carol Service, that applies the lessons of Christ likely offers greater hope than any portentous gathering of the political elite. For we need the power to lay down the power, and that is a very illusive form of power indeed.

UFOs

Reports have now confirmed that the British Government has stopped checking on sightings of UFOs. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said, "Any legitimate threat to the UK's airspace will spotted by our 24/7 radar checks and dealt with by RAF fighter aircraft"

Yeah, right.

I can't help thinking old King Herod would have kept the department open, given the problems he once had.

When Jesus was born in the village of Bethlehem in Judea, Herod was king. During this time some wise men from the east came to Jerusalem and said,
"Where is the child born to be king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."
. . . later Herod secretly called in the wise men and asked them when they had first seen the star.