revmusings

...to all of you gracious, or is that mad, enough to spend time reading this blog. I am signing off till after Christmas and the New Year.

Went OK last night. A good number of church folk fornm Churches Together attended but sadly mainly kept to themselves. One or two of us worked the bar where the pool team were practising before an away match. It was largely the same group as last year who remembered me and were really friendly and I got two offers of drinks. Sadly one of the guys who I talked with a lot last year was killed in a car accident a few weeks ago but them remembered and made a point of letting me know. The layout of the pub makes its hard to mix and also to make the broadcast a focal point. We had an amplifier into which we plugged a DAB radio so it was easier to hear. As last year it over ran, lost a carol and there was too much talk and they changed words to a very familiar carols.

Interestingly one said he didn't recognise me as I didn't have my 'uniform' on like last year - I don't even own a dog collar bu the fact that I was a minister had imprinted itself in his mind. Make of that what you will!

If nothing else a bunch of guys have seen that Christians can play pool, have a drink and a laugh, care about them enough to be sad at the death of one of them. I hope we made a good impression on them and that God can use that in some way some time in the future.

Why did I wake up at 2 am and not get back to sleep for many hours but then am so deep asleep that I don't hear the doorbell so a present to us just gets dumped on the doorstep in full view of the street (good job we were actually at home!)

Let's hope I don't fall alseep during either of the two stints of carols services I have today! I ope this year#s Sing Christmas will be better as we now have an amp and a microphone so the people in the pub might actually hear the broadcast this year (thanks to Ebay and a great sale at Staples!)

AND

why don't all versions of the traditional carols have the same words? It is such a pain marrying carol sheet with powerpint and braille carols book
Very God of Very God, Light of light eternal

OR

God of God, Light of Light


Very God

OR

Son of the Father

Still the Night, Holy the night

OR

Silent night , Holy night

This afternoon whilst singing carols and listening to readings a thought hit me... (you have probably all thought it already but it was new to me!)

Luke 2:7: there was room for them in the inn.

It suddenly struck me that unlike the usual reason given for Mary and Joseph having nowhere to sleep in the inn is that is was full (according to one minister it was full because it was Christmas - he wondered why we had laughed in the middle of his carol service talk!!) there might be another reason

This was their ancestral town, maybe they had lots of relatives living there, maybe rumour had got back that Mary became pregnant before their were formally married. She may have got away without being stoned as an adulteress due to Joseph's kind nature but they were not going to have her stay with any of them and they had tipped off the local innkeepers too - they didn't want any scandal, not in their buisness, they needed to be seen to be kosher.

One kindly innkeeper could not face turning this preganant woman out onto the streets to give birth so he gave them space in his animal shed but not in the inn so as to keep face in the town

Might religiosity and repectability have kept that couple at arms length?

I wonder if we do the same still today?

Who do we not allow near us for far of being judged by others?

Jesus showed another way by keeping exactly the company that others rejected

Went into town this morning - it was full of shoppers. I will be so glad when its all over and Mondays become a relatively calm time to shop.

Today you had three different takes on Jesus to choose from...

First came the clean cut men in black suits touting a picture of Jesus (you know the white bearded victorian one - still want to know who had the camera, Peter or John?) They tried acosting passers by with 'Do you know who this is?' - most people ignored them but they never gave up being the earnest young men they are.

Then came the table with men with beards standing behind them - just so you could tell them from the clean cut ones. The table had a big sign along its front ' Jesus was a Muslim'

Finally, there was a group of men AND women to make them stand out from the other two groups of men, huddled together in a very small group, circled in on themselves singing very badly a carol about a baby, who never cries, born on a frosty silent night with, a few shepherds, three kings and an assortment of animals, oh, and a ship came sailing by presumably guided by a star!

Will the real Jesus please stand up!

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Have been to see two shows this weekend: Simply Cinderella at the new theatre in town on friday and Joseph at another last night. Both were excellent productions and last night brought the usual quirky funny bits that Joseph lends itself to.

The Cinderella story had been updates; the ugly sisters were Essex Chavs, the shoes, which Cinderella had made herself, transported her back 70 years to meet a 'Prince' a singer in a ballroom and the fairy godmother became her own mum, back to help her (she lives in a poster. The twist at the end left Cinderella without her prince and instead inspired to become an enterperneur in the shoe business whilst the sisters became poster!

Joseph was good,though for me the lead was not a patch on Lee in the West End.

Both were good 'local' performances and its not fair to compare them with London productions but I do wish we would chose people who can actually act as well as either be good singers or just names (though I undertsand that they draw audiences which, especially in these days that is a necessary outcome) when we have professional productions

Nonetheless I had great fun, I love going to the theatre - it always gives me a time to really relax and be transported to another place and it doesn't get interrupted unlike reading a novel!

Woke this morning to a sharp frost that was freezing and dangerous on roads and pavements but absolutely beautiful on on my car - even took pictures of the amazing patterns on the bonnet and roof - a time to give thanks for the beauty of creation, even at its most treacherous.

Got to church where I received two phone calls: one from my mum to tell me an aunt had just been given weeks to live having discovered cancer just two weeks ago and that my mum's car had been broken into for the second time in three weeks - its an old banger so easy to get into but with nothing to gain as there is nothing if any value in it. My daughter who is 7 months pregnant then phoned to say the flat that she rents is being sold and so she was very tearful.

Advent is a time when we reflect on the surprising things God does and I guess we therefore should not be surprised by what life throws at us, good and bad but sometimes its nice just to plod along!