Carol Service

We had our Boys’ Brigade carol service this week.

To be honest, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind for it.

With the rise in Covid infections, we’d considered cancelling it but the BB staff had differing opinions and the decision was left to me. I went round and round the pros and cons for days but finally decided on reminding people of the precautions in place and giving them the option of not attending if they didn’t feel happy to. I wished I could take that option – especially with a son (albeit adult and not at home) with Covid himself at the moment – but as captain I didn’t feel I had that choice.  And then one or two debated the decisions in place.

So I arrived with blood pressure already raised.

And then the boys:

One forgot to bring his prayer with him. But I’d anticipated this possibility and had saved a copy on my phone.

One was due to be presented with a Duke of Edinburgh’s award in the service. Usually very prompt, he hadn’t arrived. A quick phone call revealed he wasn’t coming. So the minister and I hastily dropped that from the service.

One, who had led writing prayers with other boys the previous week and taken them home to put together, simply didn’t turn up. Halfway through the service, I slipped to the back to ask another boy to move his prayers to the earlier slot for the absentee. And, at the minister’s behest, I spent the sermon writing notes for a new prayer on my phone.

I never feel quite in the right place for worship at BB services anyway, I think because I am always on duty to some degree: checking up, directing, encouraging, or stepping in for any problems. And this service had even more of that than most.

It didn’t feel like part of the Christmas experience I longed for.

But for one moment.

One lad had arrived with his mum and his 5 week old sister. They were sat behind me. And while we were singing O Come All Ye Faithful, I happened to glance back. As she cuddled and rocked her little one in time to the music, we sang ‘O come let us adore him’.

And it all made sense.

No Five Minute Friday this week but hope you enjoy this post anyway!

O Come Let Us BEHOLD Him

I’ve been listening to a new (to me) podcast on the way to work recently, called Commuter Bible. It’s basically an audio version of the Bible.  I suppose it grabbed my attention particularly because I caught it as it was working through John’s Gospel, for which I have a bit of a soft spot, having studied it at A level and wrestled with it since. And there was just something about hearing rather than reading that made me notice different things: the word play on ‘sent’ in the story of the man born blind, the different disciples’ nicknames, the weakness of Pontius Pilate and his political wriggling.

When I saw the Five Minute Friday prompt this week, the obvious link is to the Christmas story of angels, shepherds, and wise men coming to BEHOLD the baby Jesus. But the first thought that came to my mind, probably because I’ve recently listened to that account in John’s Gospel, was Pilate’s declaration:

“Behold the Man!”

It’s a very different image to behold.

No nostalgic view of a cute child cuddled up in his mother’s arms. No soft lambs or shiny treasures. No warm smells of baby skin and hay. No romantic starlight or glorious angel singing. No natural rush of love and worship.

Instead, here’s a grown man, a political troublemaker, a disturber of the peace, a threat. Here’s a man who doesn’t give easy answers and, when he chooses, doesn’t give answers at all. A difficult man. A frustrating man. Here’s a man exhausted from lack of sleep and a whipping with an iron stink of blood and sweat. Here’s a man forced into fancy dress and slapped around. A man much easier to hate or pity or dismiss.

It’s so easy to forget the cute baby will grow up to be this man.

It’s easy to romanticise the baby’s story in the first place, wrap it in misleading myths and tinsel.

How uncomplicated was his birth? How socially unacceptable to be an unmarried mother? How comforting the smell of animal manure nearby? How hygienic to be using an animal feed trough as a cot? What to make of the strange visitors with strange stories? And how to cope with the trauma of becoming refugees to escape a mass murder?

It’s easy to romanticise our idea of our own Christmas celebrations. And then end up gravely disappointed when we can’t be with family like in last year’s lockdown restrictions. Or struggling to cope with expectations of joyful celebrations when we are grieving lost ones. Or exhausted by all the demands of preparations and events leading up to the day itself.

Maybe we need to remember more often that Jesus’ life – the start and the end – was messy and difficult and altogether human.

Just like ours.

Our Christmas doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs Christ.

Every week the Five Minute Friday community free write for limited time inspired by a given prompt word. It’s also a fantastically supportive groups for writers. You can find more inspirational writing here: Community – Five Minute Friday

Great Expectations

My pregnancies did not turn out as I had anticipated at all.

The problem was, I had fallen for the hype: nine months of glow and joy. What I got was illness, hospital admissions, and anxiety.

First time round the timing was out (I’d just changed jobs) and a long labour preceded a precarious birth. Carefully made plans for Number Two went awry when my waters broke early, in an evening when my husband couldn’t drive because he’d had a couple of beers and my parents (babysitters for Number One) were without a car. Hyperemesis both times put paid to our hopes for a bigger family.

Looking back, I tell funny stories about all this. And I would go through it all again for the purpose of bringing these two wonderful human beings into the world – they continue to be so worth all the pain and fear. It just didn’t work out how I thought it would.

I wonder if Mary went through something similar?

Before that angel turned up, did she have dreams of how pregnancy and motherhood would be?

Certainly, the timing couldn’t have been as she had expected. Nor was the conversation she had to have with her fiancé early on. And an arduous, hundred mile journey of around a week I’m sure wasn’t part of her plans. Nor, I’m certain, was giving birth without her mother and other familiar figures for support.

The Christmas song, ‘Mary Did You Know’ asks if she was aware in advance of her baby’s divine purpose and actions. I wonder if she was caught out by all the messy human implications?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trW_lD9sBt0

But isn’t that typical of life? How many of us can look back on our lives and say that they have gone entirely according to plan? Woody Allen, adapting an old Yiddish proverb, said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him about your plans.”

I don’t think God is a spoilsport. I think His plans for us are so much over and above what we can come up with. I can certainly witness to that when I look back at my life. As Jeremiah 29.11 says:

‘”I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”’

The amazing thing is that He can take ‘all things and intermingle them for good for those that love Him’ (Romans 8.28). So a mistimed pregnancy can produce a beautiful child. A miserable pregnancy can give insight into others’ suffering, developing our compassion. Being out of our depth can throw us onto God’s mercy and increase our trust in Him. The trick isn’t to stop making plans but to make sure we include God in them and ask to be included in His.

Every week the Five Minute Friday community free write for limited time inspired by a given prompt word. It’s also a fantastically supportive groups for writers. You can find more inspirational writing here: Community – Five Minute Friday