In Circles

There is on ancient Celtic poem which reads;

He drew a ring which shut me out

Heretic, rebel, things to flout.

But Love and I had wit to win.

We drew a circle that took him in.

I might be misinterpreting the signs of the times here, but I think that as we move further into the 21st Century and the Information Age we are developing a new taste for drawing circles that shut people out.  It is true that in this country at present we cannot publicly lynch people but we can rapidly turn people into Public Enemy Number One.

That's been difficult in the past week with Jimmy Savile and Jihadi John who cannot both have top/bottom spot at once.  The one being dead and the other distant attention has turned to anybody who may have been in their 'circle'.  So cameras are camped outside a random kind of house in London where Jihadi John once lived and Stoke Mandeville Hospital as if to capture the entrails of guilt that might not have been gathered up with their departure.

To understand Jesus we have to understand that he became as despised and rejected as this.  The circle was drawn with him outside, and by the super-righteous authorities and, eventually, the democratic shout of the crowd.  It is not comfortable.

Yet what is more amazing is the way that God draws circles.  Without any touch of irony or hypocrisy God could comfortably and justifiably draw a circle of holiness that leaves not just Mr Savile and JJ outside but their fellow-humans one and all too.  Heaven had never had a human in it, let alone a former sinful being, and had been rocking along fine.

The story of Easter is that He drew a Circle of Love that included humans - sinful ones - in.

Gold

As the Metropolitan Police today made a devastating statement about the late celebrity Sir (for now) Jimmy Savile - and as his nearest and dearest decide to dismantle his portentous grave - it seems fitting to revive the memory of a Blog from a year ago.
And to which we might add that golden coffins continue to accrue interesting associations.  Not only, in fact, is the danger of too much gold in your dying place that the living will take it from you, or you from it but that the light of history may destroy it faster than the Yorkshire weather.  Cheap wood or wicker for me please, and regarding the rest I'll keep trusting Jesus'll fix it.

9 NOVEMBER  2011
Prior to today's funeral, showman Jimmy Savile's golden coffin lay 'in state' in a hotel in Leeds.  We'll miss him, epitomised in his epitaph IT WAS GOOD WHILE IT LASTED. 

A couple of days before we've heard of the conclusion of the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor - and the international star also had a golden coffin.  Sadly the story of Michel Jackson, notwithstanding his great talents, was that it was not always good while it lasted.  That was why he died young.

Who else?  There was Carl Williams (2006); he was a killer himself killed in jail in Australia after being a leader of the Melbourne underworld; Nick Rizutto, son of the imprisoned Mafia boss in Montreal (2010). And so on: golden coffins have some interesting associations.

There's nothing new about golden caskets either.  The gilded bed on which old Tutankhamen's remains lay is but one of the golden treasures that, since their discovery, have made his death arrangements among the best known in history.  Sadly for him, the treasures were so wonderful that he (or at least his remaining molecules) were separated from the gold so that museum visitors can see the gold.  So the danger of too much gold in your dying place is that the living will take it from you, or you from it.

The real trick would not be about gold at all.  It would be to be able to exit the place to join the living once again.  Lady Gaga achieved this earlier this year at Radio 1's Big Weekend.  For her first song she emerged from a golden coffin to launch her song set.  Great show!  Sir Jimmy was proud I'm sure.  But the tricky, and achingly important, part of the real trick would be to do that after being publicly dead, say on the third day . . .

Jesus'll fix it.

Gold in Concrete

As things turned out (see last week's blog), Jimmy Savile's coffin was encased in concrete to prevent thieves stealing some of his extravagant jewellery which was not inside but might have been (or indeed investigating whether the coffin was real gold . . . Tutanjimmy's tomb as it were.)

All that concrete is going to make it very difficult on resurrection day. 

Like moving a stone I suppose.