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CREATING COMMUNITIES OF WHOLENESS WITH CHRIST AT THE CENTRE
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25th December, 6.20pm
Midnight was also packed, if not quite on the window sills [probably a relief as they all had candles on them!].
I could see where I was going this morning, unlike the last few days in the fog when I could barely see the ground below my feet, let alone the hedges at the edges of the field [visibility was about 1m]. But I'm going to need to keep running, whether I can see or not, because alongside a few pieces of paper with writing on them, and a beautiful painting, our Christmas presents consist of six bottles of wine and twelve boxes of chocolates/biscuits! I've no idea what this says either about us or our generous benefactors, but if you want biscuits this is the place to come.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
24th December, 9.30pm
The veg are chopped, my own personal master chef [Jane's mum] consulted, the table laid, sermons written [one in ASDA with the help of my fellow shoppers - well we were waiting in the queue for 30 minutes, and one courtesy of Jane] and I'm all ready for Midnight Mass, and indeed for Christmas Day, so here I am blogging.
The Crib Service at St Francis was fantastic, we were literally onto the window-sills, and should have done double the number of service sheets! And we neither set anyone on fire not set off the smoke alarms, and we had a real baby, who was brilliant. So I'm on a high, if completely exhausted.
We had our 20 week 'anomaly scan' [someone really should think about re-naming it] on 22nd Dec, and we're expecting another little girl, one friend suggested that we should start saving for weddings]. I was wonderful to see the baby in such detail.
You can see here our nativity at St Francis, but for now, have a really wonderful Christmas!
21st December
I have absolutely no idea what this says about me, but I've been taken for a member of staff at John Lewis, Borders, ASDA and, most recently, a Garden Center. I was getting a Christmas Tree and started chatting to another Dad with small children also looking for a tree. We both found said trees and he asked if I could help get his to the till and then the car, I did so, then he asked if he could pay me for it, and at this stage I felt that I really had to shatter the illusion!
The same happened a while back in John Lewis, I was even moving stuff around the children's department so that they could see the TP climbing frames - and I was just trying to buy a car seat [btw that's a big mistake - you can get them far cheaper than John Lewis!].
13th December
After 48 hours on retreat in Exmoor, during which I managed to re-calibrate myself, at least for the time being, and also managed to pray, read, run, swim [briefly - the sea was cold], relax and sleep, I came back to sit with Anne's family at her side as she went on her journey to celebrate with our great big God. Loads more to write, but later, later.
And then on Sunday we had a service of life and death, because we were also celebrating the Baptism of William and Elizabeth. It's hard when life and death, joy and pain come so close together, but it also takes us very close to the heart of the God, who died on the cross and rose again.
And then, on a completely different note, after the service a member of the Baptism party asked if she could take a photo of me and Becki. Becki was at church on her own, her husband [Ben] was playing football and her Mum was at St Mary's, so when Becki plays for the hymns/songs, I take over Alex [her one year old son]. My wife, Jane is at her church in Purton so I'm also there on my own. So anyway we got asked for a photo and said yes, and then I began to think and realized that it might be good to mention that we weren't married. To which the unspoken response was 'The Vicar and organist have a son and aren't married!' I then mentioned that Alex wasn't my son [and realized I was just digging deeper and should stop!] and at that stage we attempted a proper explanation. Sometimes you can only laugh!
6th December, 8.50pm
This is just a warning - if anyone else come up to me and says 'you're just getting into your busy time' I think that I may well hit them, throw something at them, or them at something, or ... fill in the blanks at will and enjoy your imaginations!
Actually, and this next comment may be self defeating, because everyone thinks that Christmas is so busy they tend not to ask me to do anything else, the phone and e mail go quiet for a while, which means that all that I have left to do is the services. Compared to the rest of the year its relatively quiet and focused.
4th December, 7.05pm
Having written about Anna and Alice in my last post, here's Adam... He got an end of term award at Drama today [along with everyone else in the class] but Adam got the loudest laugh [or the only one]. It needs to be seen to be believed, but he's got this way of doing a 'condensed sprint'. His legs move as fast as if he was trying to cover 100m in 10 seconds, but each step only takes him forward a centimeter. Its a condensed sprint. And then he was completely flawed by the concept of shaking hands. He got his certificate and a clap and a laugh.
And in the wake of the Prime Minister's announcement that we are going to commission a new wave of nuclear submarines I'm going to join CND.
4th December, 4.10pm
Alice came downstairs after doing 'teeth and hair' looking as if she had just had an electric shock. I asked her, 'did you actually brush your hair?'. 'Yes', she said, 'but my hair goes boing!' It does indeed! Its just like tigger!
It was Anna's turn to open the Divine advent calendar - all the gluttony of chocolate with the assurance that its fair-trade, and unlike so many calendars, it actually tells the Christmas story. Anna is a great reader [as well as a very keen chocoholic] but when she opened door number four and read 'Mary was bothered to Joseph' we looked up... really? It should have been 'Mary was betrothed to Joseph'.
And talking of Advent Calendars, look up www.adventstories.org and if you keep going you'll find three kings from North Swindon!
2nd December, 9.20pm
It's been one hell of a week - like driving into a brick wall, multiple times, although I guess that the process really started three weeks ago and everything since has been aftershocks [to mix my metaphors terribly]. None of it is anything at all to do with the parish [although the parish has had to cope with some of the symptoms for which I am incredibly sorry]. But its left me alternately frozen and overheating, to the panicing.
We got back from one or other of the Children's clubs and Anna could see that I was in a mad way and went and got an enormous lion and gave it to me. At which point Alice decided that it was her lion and she wanted it right now and so she took it back. Angels come in all kinds of forms! We just need to look out for them and to trust God's grace to do the rest.
BLOGGERS NOTE
You'll notice in this blog that I use clauses and sub clauses and square brackets and lots of other grammatical aberrations! Also that I can't spell. Jane sometimes compares my sentence structure to St Paul, going on and on and on... I'm afraid that you're going to have to live with it. I try to edit it all out when I'm writing for print, but I'm going to indulge myself here.