Tis The Season To Be ...

Wrecked? Peaceful? Worried? Still?

Traditionally the Christmas season is the twelve days after Christmas, not the period of preparation beforehand - that is Advent.

Church traditions try to make Advent out to be all about seriousness and self-denial, but that is really less true to the Bible stories than the modern approach of stress and rush and pressure. Consider a newly-married couple trying to cope with advanced pregnancy, major family issues, and Roman occupiers forcing them to travel across the country to an area primed and ready to take commercial advantage of their need. Modern commercialism and exploitation in Britain are probably but a shadow of their Bethlehem predecessors.

I enjoy Christmas, its colour and its excitement, and the concern for others which always manages to break through the materialism and excess. I also struggle with it: deadlines and pressure are no good at all with CFS. By the time I get to bed on Christmas Eve (technically Christmas Morn) I am always physically and mentally wrecked, and usually in the process of succumbing to some nasty bug or other. Luckily I have a daughter who always gets into the spirit of excitement, and an immediate family who get on with one another and actually like being together.

My Christmas morning tends to be heavily structured: awake at stupid-o'clock to look at stockings, downstairs for much-needed coffee and a first round of presents, then preparing the turkey and putting it in the oven, before heading off to church, as a family, to welcome the Christ-child into the world, and finally doing the rest of the Christmas lunch. I am in no state to stress about the meal by this point, and it's only for immediate family and friends anyway so not so much pressure, so that's relatively peaceful.

I recognise that I am extremely fortunate.

Then we get to the traditional Christmas season for me: a time to rest and recover, short visits to wider family, and thoughts of Mary and Joseph, with Jesus safely arrived, forced to take a pause and to wonder.

It is only a pause, of course, there are still consequences to deal with. Somehow Mary and Joseph have to make peace with their relatives in Bethlehem, their 'family town'. Not to mention dealing with the evil fallout from Herod's tyrannical insecurity. But for now they must rest.

I will have to do something about my badly battered credit card, and there is a lot of travelling still to do. But for now I must rest. I have new music, books and an immediate family who are great; it's the season to take time out and enjoy them.

And give thanks.

Fifty-Six Weeks In The Year

In a church year, that is. Kind of.

The official church year begins at the end of November, with Advent: the season of preparation for the coming of Jesus. That makes reasonable sense: Jesus is the centre of the Christian faith, and we have a big celebration of his birth on December 25th, so a four-week (actually four-Sunday) time of preparation and anticipation takes you to a starting point of (this year) November 30th.

The run up to Christmas is typically terribly busy, often stressfully so, and then Christmas itself can be fraught with family hassles, or lonely with the lack of family hassles. All of this can help us to connect with that very first Christmas. Joseph and Mary trying to cope with a new marriage, with Mary's first baby on the way, and with the knowledge that family and neighbours are all very aware that the baby is expected a lot less than nine months after the marriage, probably also aware that it is not Joseph's. Imagine the small-town attitudes responding to that.

Then the Romans throw a spanner in the works by making everybody travel back to their family town: all the way south to Bethlehem in Mary and Joseph's case. As if they haven't got enough to cope with. Then when they get to Bethlehem - their family town - their family don't want them: nobody has room for a young pregnant girl, about to give birth. Family problems and loneliness in a single hurtful package.

If Advent is the beginning of the church year, when is the end? People will often say it is the week before Advent: the feast of Christ the King (in those churches which have this sort of church year, of course). Except that, after celebrating Christ's Kingship, you then need to prepare for his coming back, as king, to rule here on earth, to put things right and to reign in justice and power. We do that at Advent too.

So Advent is also a time to consider and prepare for Jesus' return. and a time to think about death and resurrection, judgement and restoration. The details of when and how this will happen are deliberately vague in the Bible - which doesn't stop sects, nutters, obsessives and successful American authors from fantasising about it - but we do get told the result. People will be raised to life and renewed, God and Jesus will come to live on earth, and the earth will also be cleansed and renewed.

Somewhere in the detail left vague and ambiguous in the Bible is 'hell': the fundamental question of what happens to those who aren't raised to life and renewed. My take is that we eventually face a fundamental choice: do we want to be a part of this renewal or do we not? Why anyone would choose to face the 'second death' rather than allow God to renew them I don't know, but I guess a part of respecting someone's humanity is to give them that genuine option.

God's kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven, just as we regularly pray. All that we have done which is wrong will be cleansed and forgotten; all that we have done which is good will remain as part of Jesus' renewed kingdom. We will live together in Jesus' presence with peace, justice and purpose.

So you end up with two seasons of Advent overlapping: one at the beginning of the church year and one at the end. Advent is just under four weeks long (depending which day Christmas Eve falls upon) so that makes a tad under fifty-six weeks in one church year. QED.

Stressed Ramblings

In the middle of last month I received a letter threatening legal action over an old blog post. I found it extremely intimidating, making threats and demanding money.

In a way this gives me insight on a more emotional level into the situation some of my customers have found themselves in. They receive a phone call out of the blue, claiming (in effect) to be from Microsoft, telling them they have viruses and could be disconnected from the Internet, and charging for the 'service' of removing said (non-existent) viruses. Computers are not these customers' comfort zone and they get very worried and often end up making payments which, with a cool head and time to reflect, they would never normally have agreed to.

My advice to my computer customers is always to take time to think about the matter, and to consult an expert (such as myself) if they are concerned. So, after an initial headless-chicken moment, that's what I did over the letter. Legal affairs are as dark, unknown and scary to me as computers are to many others.

Kudos then to E.J.Winter & Sons for advice which I found to be clear, constructive and helpful. A thumbs up also to Harrison's Solicitors in Reading who don't deal with this sort of thing, but helpfully put me onto someone who does.

Meanwhile the empty nesting continues. Our son has started work up in the Midlands, and has now moved into his own rented flat. At the same time our daughter is slowly finding her student feet in the foreign land of Wales. I'm immensely proud of both of them.