Many thanks to those of you who posted pressies in my virtual stocking (which has gone now – just to state the obvious!).
I hope all who wander by here have a happy and peaceful Christmas and that 2007 brings all that you hope for.
I’ll be back in the new year – hopefully with something vaguely interesting, inspiring, insightful… nah, why change the habit of a lifetime… Random – it’ll be something random!!
Monthly Archives: December 2006
Happy Christmas!
Wiblog entry for 17/12/2006
The great thing about teenagers is that within the span of a few hours they can have you feeling as proud as you can possibly get and then have you wanting to bang your head against a brick wall!
Lord, let him know how proud I am of him.
Lord, let him know that my love for him
- in quantities impossible to describe -
is just a fraction of your’s.
Lord, let him know that I respect and admire him
as the young man he’s growing into,
and remember with delight
the boy that he has been.
Lord, let him know that I love it when he
talks about his life, his hopes his fears and dreams.
And let him know that I would give up anything for him;
even when in his eyes I demand the world.
Lord, let him know that I have laughed and prayed and cried
for him more than for any other;
and let him know that what I do is try.
Lord, let him know that when the angels
appreared on that hillside
they were bringing news that was for him.
Lord, let him know that the stories we’ve shared
are firm foundations and solid rock.
Lord, let him know all this.
He is my son.
Proud Mum
Yep, I am officially the proudest mum ever… no it’s not up for debate with the mother of the cute but snotty kid playing Joseph in the school nativity play – you know, the one that needed a wee just as the Innkeeper was telling him there was “no room!” TeenSon has just played bass with his band at a rather cool local venue… and they were bloody great! 
I managed to get a few rather blurry piccies through the people standing in front of me, so in perfect ‘proud but embarrassing mum’ style, here he is on bass… just over the bloke’s right shoulder!
At least I wasn’t the only one gushing madly… his dad and stepmum were right proud too and showed it (as did all the other parents’ of all the other teens taking part!) so they were all in the same boat! His dad got some video and much better pics so I can’t wait to see them.
Twinkle, twinkle, little…er, giant snowman…
I think it is possibly a growing UK phenomenon to see houses smothered in flashing lights, sleighs with reindeer, inflatable santas, more lights, sparkling trees and giant snowmen? But if it’s not a widespread phenomenon, then all you need to do is pop down to our place and have a little drive around! One of the girls in my youth group, who lives out of town, had referred to her mini-estate as ‘Tinseltown’ but because it was one of those ‘nicer’ areas I thought she must be exaggerating. She’s not! I dropped her home one night and saw, in one street, enough lights to pollute the skies as far as Pluto! But, despite the ‘jot’ of tackiness and the concerns for the environment, there is something just a bit appealing in a sea of lights at Christmas, and I still enjoy driving around at night and being dazzled. It’s a shame that many of the people who go to town with their outdoor decorations will have no concept at all of the real meaning of Christmas, of the baby in the manger, of the Creator God made man: living, teaching, healing, loving and dying among us – for them. And so, in that light, I was even more delighted to walk into our local huge garden centre and see a giant nativity scene at the entrance – at least that was more accurate tack!
The attempt at something for everyone!
Yesterday morning I was preaching. It was one of those services with a rich variety of people! There were two children being baptised, so lots of visitors with them who would never usually set foot in a church. It was Parade too – so there were Rainbows, Brownies, Beavers, Cubs and their leaders of varying levels of familiarity with God, Jesus, church and all. And there was the regular congregation (except for those who refuse to come to ‘Family Services’*). So finding something to say that might be beneficial to old, young, somewhere in between, the unchurched, the de-churched, the re-churched and the committedly churched is always something of a challenge! This is how I attempted to meet the challenge… (well after my ‘family service’ tangent anyway!)
[*I used to hate the term 'family service' because it always had a sense of being the church gathering for mums and dads with their children all in together... and as a divorcee I didn't fit with the perfect 'family' set-up (not to mention the elderly/single/without children people present)... and so I preferred the term 'all-age worship' when we were all in together. But then I started to see the term 'family service' as reflecting the sense of the whole church family in together (thanks to VicarBoss) and so find it a more acceptable term now - though only when it is understood in this way by all present - which is pretty unlikely! (end tangent)]
Sunday 10th December 2006 (Advent 2)
Family Parade Service with baptisms
John 1: 29-37
[Children all came forward to sit on the step]
We're in the season of Advent at the moment – that's a time of preparation and getting ready. And in my bag this morning I've got some things that we might use for getting ready for different things.
So, I'll need some help from you to see if we can guess what each of these things might be found or dug out to get ready for…
Christmas tree decoration (Christmas)
Passport (holiday)
purificator (baptism)
towel (bath/swimming)
banner (birthday party)
duster and polish (visitors!)
torch (going out in the dark/camping)
There are lots of things we do where getting ready and preparing properly is very important. In the reading that R has just read for us, John the Baptist had been helping people to get ready to meet Jesus. Just before the verses we heard, John was saying, “Make a straight path for the Lord” that means, prepare the way or get ready for the Lord, for Jesus. It's really important that we think and prepare properly before we meet with Jesus, just as those people listening to John did.
Today is a very special day for L and M (and for all of us) because they are being baptised, they're being welcomed into Jesus' family. And because that's a very important thing to do, there will have been lots of preparations. I expect L and M's families will have thought about clothes – what they wear today, and food and drinks – how they might celebrate together after the service. But it was also important that they had time to prepare by thinking about what the service means too, and so will have spent some time with one of the baptism team thinking about the promises they'll make for M and L and thinking about what it means to be a part of God's family. And those kinds of preparations are very important, because by thinking about them we're doing what John the Baptist said, and are ‘Preparing the way for the Lord' – making a straight path for him.
And for the rest of us too, in coming to church to meet with Jesus, preparation and getting ready is important too… The Brownies/Beavers/Cubs have taken care in getting ready and being smart in their uniforms. [they stood and turned to show everyone how smart they were!]
We might not be able to see Jesus here in quite the same way John the Baptist did, but God tells us that he will be with us through the Holy Spirit, so getting ready is important – we might do that perhaps by saying sorry to someone we've hurt or been angry with, or perhaps by just slowing down to think about God in the morning rush to get here?
And there are some other important preparations going on at the moment! One of the things in my bag was a clue to what we're getting ready for both in and out of church at the moment.
[Took out the tree decoration again]
So, it's Advent at the moment and that's the church's time for getting ready for Jesus. We get ready to think about him at Christmas as we remember him being born in the stable in Bethlehem – God coming into the world and living among us is an amazing thing.
How are you getting ready for Christmas? [asked the children] (decorations/presents/nativity plays/advent wreath)?
It's important that in all we do for Christmas we remember Jesus and what it's all about, because what did John the Baptist say?
“Make a straight path for the Lord” “Prepare the way for the Lord”. [yes, they remembered!]
And during Advent we also take time to think and prepare for when Jesus will come back again – not coming again as a baby, but one day returning through the clouds to bring an end to all that's wrong in the world now.
Today we can think and prepare for Christmas, and for when Jesus comes back, but also we can be prepared for meeting Jesus in our everyday lives. It might be helpful for some of us to have a slight variation of that popular car sticker… “Jesus is for life, not just for Christmas!”
So, I think there are two things that John the Baptist can especially remind us of today as we get ready for Christmas and for every day life close to Jesus…
1) Pay attention to Jesus and don't ignore him.
Preparing the way for the Lord, means not missing him in our preparations for baptism, or for Christmas, or in day-to-day life. It means keeping our eyes fixed on him and in the busy-ness of preparations remembering that the most important thing is Jesus, the Son of God, coming into the world to live among us.
and 2) Like John the Baptist – point him out… “Look, here is the lamb of God!”
That was what John the Baptist did – he pointed the people towards Jesus, and we can do that too. We can do that at Christmastime by reminding the people we're with that Jesus is at the centre of our celebrations, “look, here he is” That might mean pointing at the church and coming to worship during the Christmas season or pointing at a nativity scene and remembering the baby who grew up to show God's love in the world.
And we can also point him out in our lives, by living as he has called us to live: “look, here he is” as we love one another, as we seek to serve and to help the poor, as with his help we give glimpses of Jesus through our own lives.
Advent is a perfect season to think about these things, to prepare the way for the Lord and to point him out every day, just like John the Baptist did.
Amen.
This comes with a mental health warning…
Perhaps some of you lovely Wibloggers and Wibosphere frequenters could help me with this? Shall I warn you that your head might explode if you go and read it…. nah!
No further progress
There are no photos to be had yet of my revitalised study… because it is as yet still in the same unrevitalised condition! I’m hoping to get it finished early this week so I can enjoy this potentially beneficial space – not least my lovely old oak chair for reading in and a quiet corner set aside for prayer. I will be very pleased when order is brought forth from chaos!
I find myself especially hoping to get things straightened out as Christmas approaches – I don’t make a big thing about New Year resolutions – but I do like to make another attempt at overcoming at least a few of my shortcomings at regular intervals, and New Year is as good a time as any to make some attempt – with God’s help. At least, with God, we can take the opportunity for a new start any day of the year and not just on the 1st January – just one of his great gifts.
Still, even with all these good intentions, I’d love to be able to click my fingers like Mary Poppins and watch the papers file themselves, or perhaps to wake up and find that the elves had been in and done it all (remember ‘the elves and the shoemaker’?) for me!
Mission… Impossible (or so it seems)!
Well, there turned out to be no time yesterday to resume the ’study’ mission! Having taken the Advent 1 service (lovely!) followed by a rehearsal for our little nativity play (the children do it during the Christmas Eve/Christingle service) which I’m narrating, then home briefly to wrap (rather daft) eighteenth and twenty-first birthday presents for friends who we then drove over to see, getting back late afternoon, cooking and eating dinner, collapsing on the settee for 3/4’s of an hour and then doing Youth Group… I haven’t got much further in my progress! Still it was a nice day… with the bonus of M changing my tyre for me while we were there. I noticed it was pretty flat the other day so went and put some air in it, and it seemed fine, though when we got out of the car at the friends’ house yesterday it was nearly flat again and on inspection had a bloomin’ great screw embedded in it!
Still, I hope I manage to get it done soon as when it is done it’s a room and a space that I really value and enjoy… and whether anyone’s interested in seeing them – I’m looking forward to posting the ‘after’ pictures!!
Right… that’s it…
…I am just beginning the attempt to get my study in order. Unfortunately I am far too proud to post a ‘before’ picture – you’ll just have to make do with the chaotic bookshelves from a couple of posts ago – though I do like them looking slightly chaotic like that… so you might not notice the difference when I post the ‘after’ picture of that particular bit of the room!! Were I to post the before and after pictures of the rest of the room, you would certainly notice the difference (that’s assuming I make it to ‘after’)! I am posting this information here in an attempt to feel accountable and motivated by the fact I’ve said before witnesses that this is what I’m doing. I fully intend to have the room all lovely, hunky and dorey again by the time I go to bed (which could well be in the early hours), with everything filed somewhere sensible (no, not everything in the bin), with a nice little prayer space accessible again and with my reading chair uncluttered so I can actually sit in it and read – not to mention the desks transformed back to their intended states from being paper mountains! Don’t let me wander off… and please call the police if you see me anywhere near that Ship tonight. Thank you. I am just going to put the kettle on before I start… well, that’s allowed – you can’t expect me to do this with low caffeine levels now can you?
Update: Hmmm, well I didn’t actually say ‘before I go to bed tonight‘ did I? I’ve made good progress, but the photos aren’t going to appear just yet! My mission wasn’t helped by there being one of the very loud kind of discos the other side of the wall (my house is attached to our church hall). The sound-proofing works fine until you get an enthusiastic DJ… and my study is then one of the noisiest rooms in the house! I gave up after a while of the bass thud and listening to such disco favourites as ‘Is this the way to Amarillo’ and a load of 90’s dance classics, and shut myself away in the lounge where I proceeded to fall asleep in front of the TV again!
Thank you all for your encouraging comments (haha Auntie Doris 
) the mission will be resumed tomorrow!
