Christmas Card Mysteries: No 8

Christmas Day!

Surely, at last, the mystery is over and revelation begins.

Yet we remember those angels declaring peace to humankind and we see our world, even our neighbourhoods, no more peaceful and possibly less so as a New Year begins.  It is a mystery.  But this beautiful, troubling card helps.

With a little detective work (because we have had many canal holidays) I worked out that this is a picture of the Kennet and Avon Canal in Bath.  The text inside reads Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always.  The picture is certainly peaceful if one were to measure it in decibels. The crunch of footsteps in the snow and that's about it I imagine.

My recollection of this section of canal is that we became stuck on it in a lock and in a fairly scary place where it joins a river.  No peace there.  And given Bath's geography, evident enough in the picture, a decent snowfall is going to bring distress as well as peace.  Slippery pavements, impassable hills, cancelled events.  

The pictured idyll overlays a dark unease.  

Whereas Christmas? On Christmas Day it's worth reflecting that it is really the opposite.  Most of the participants in the first Christmas were dislodged or distressed at some stage - the mother, the shepherd, the fiance, the wise men, king Herod, the bereaved parents of Bethlehem, the children of Bethlehem.  

But the pictured disruptions and deaths overlayed a bright peace, in which and to which we continue to move.

Christmas Card Mysteries: No 7

It is rehearsed almost to the point of irritation that there was 'no room for them in the inn'.  And I write that as the chair of a charity that helps the homeless and lonely.  The near irritation derives from the patently obvious fact that it is far more significant that Jesus died deserted than that he was born 'not in the inn' though the latter is admittedly a portent of his greater rejection.

Unfortunately most Christmases are darkened by world events and it is also a cliched truth that Jesus's family were forced to flee their country.  Again, it was not general world politics but actual human hatred directed at king Jesus that is reason for the story, but it still reminds us that Christ is more easily seen in the tents than in the palaces.

Anyhow, welcome to my latest Christmas Card Mystery.  Mystery No 6 had disappearing shepherds.  This card catapults Christ beyond the experience of a humble birth and a toddler refugee experience: it makes him an orphan.  It's great news for Barnardos fundraising department.  Less good for the Catholic devotion to BVM*  who it seems, with Joseph, has left the kid in the hay in the open air to be rescued by passing shepherds and wise men.

And you thought parenting in 2016 was bad?

*Blessed Virgin Mary for the non-liturgical reader

Christmas Card Mysteries: No 6

This card is unusual in that, instead of crowding a chronology of things into one moment in the stable, it has three pictures to tell how the shepherds heard, looked, then went to the stable.

An obvious alarm is that they seem to have needed the wise men's star as well as the instruction of the angel to find the babe.  I'd always thought the angel's directions were rather good - 
"Today in the City of David a Saviour has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord! And this will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger."

But looking at the third picture it appears that even the previously unknown addition of the 'sat nav' star to aid the shepherds was not enough.

For yes, on picture 2 there are 5 shepherds, on picture 3 at the mangerside there are only 3 (plus the wise men).  Maybe two went to the pub?  Or midnight mass?  Still, overall a 60% attendance rate is something most pastors would be happy to accept . . .

Happy Birthday, Maurice White

Maurice White, founding father and general genius of Earth, Wind and Fire (EWF) would have been celebrating his 75th birthday today.  Sadly for his loved ones and many fans he died back in February. 

EWF formed part of my musical growing up background.  I was never a huge fan mainly, I think, because I was not into the relentless Californian feel-goodness that characterised their undoubtedly skillful music.     

This feel-good song is the more remarkable because its subject matter is the opposite - 

Somethin' happened along the way
Yesterday was all we had
Somethin' happened along the way
What used to be happy is sad
Somethin' happened along the way
What used to be was all we had

Perhaps on a birthday it is worth thinking about that Love which cannot die, does not die, the Love that is stronger than death.  The advantage of a birthday near Christmas is that such a Love is relatively easy to locate.

If you look in the hay.