Behold the duck

Talking of symbols...Manchester seems to have decided to celebrate Christmas without too much reference to Christ.

I apologize for the slightly fuzzy picture above. Maybe I was still shaking with laughter at the giant Santa - or perhaps it is a giant duck in a red coat? Who knows?

Christmas Sorrows

What for some may be a time of joy and family reunion, is often, for others, a time of desperate sadness and separation.
It is the privilege of ministry to meet people at every point between celebration and despair.

One of the saddest things I've ever had to do during a Christmas season was to conduct a service for the burial of a stillborn baby. There are no easy answers or quick comforting words that can be offered at times like these. Often silence is the only honest response. But even the silence sometimes has to be articulated later and I did this some months after the event in the following short poem. It is offered to everyone for whom Christmas is a hard and painful time.

Stillborn at Christmas

Cold was the day.
Bitter and cold were our hearts.
The sun shone, clear and bright
but, strangely, without warmth.
we felt forsaken by the Universe,
a gathered knot,
around the loose-ends of the little life
we never knew.

And we buried
the dreams and hopes
that had unravelled.

The flesh became a word
that would not dwell among us.
and I, the spinner of words,
had nothing left to say.


(c) Iain D. Cunningham

Shop till you drop

Where have I been these last couple of weeks? you might ask - if anyone ever reads this blog, that is.*

Well, you can be sure of one thing I have not been indulging in the nation's favourite pastime - shopping - even though it is now getting very near to Christmas. Nor have I recently been where this photograph was taken (Mong Kok in Hong Kong) which is a pity, because Hong Kong is a fantastic place. I say this even though shopping is undoubtedly the top pastime in Hong Kong and it is probably one of my pet hates. (With the possible exceptions of buying CD's and books.) Oh... and the imminent possibility of purchasing a new camera! That I will enjoy, although I know already exactly what camera I want to buy, so it won't take long.

To be honest I just don't know where shoppers get the stamina from. I've found it easier to walk the West Highland Way than to walk down Sauchiehall Street on a late December day. (In fact, to be even more honest, it's a long while since I did either!) NO - shopping is just not my thing. Any shopping I do now is usually done online. Your feet don't get so sore for one thing.
I am, however, really looking forward to Christmas because the family will all be together again.
Of course, I will be working on Christmas Eve (a Sunday) even doing a bit of the night shift with our midnight service and I'll be working on Christmas Day. But I wouldn't miss it for anything - not even flying off to the sun (or more likely sitting in a tent in a fog-bound Heathrow Airport. Ouch! poor folk.)

Anyway... back to Christmas. "This'll be your busy time!" is the comment I hear more than any other during the run up to Christmas. You can almost hear the implied observation that for the rest of the year you don't really do very much anyway. I'm not sure it is much busier for me than many other times of the year: it's just that people see me at all sorts of events. Tomorrow morning I will be at my fourth school Christmas service!
(Actually, it is only my third. I had a clash of dates for one of them and had the brilliant idea of making a short video to be played in the service through the multimedia system, an upbeat message, wishing everyone a really Happy Christmas. Unfortunately the school's laptop wasn't quite up to it and struggled to do both video and audio at the same time. Apparently my contribution was more like the Rev. I. M. Jolly, when the sound slowed down and went out of sync with the pictures.

A colleague who was present at the service because her daughter is a pupil in the school very kindly and thoughtfully wrote this to me the next day: "Just a quick note to thank you for giving me the best laugh I’ve had in ages – tears were rolling down my cheeks – you may already have heard. Not sure what was up with the sound on your message today – but I did make comment that you could audition for the next IM Jolly!
As you well know I am not highly PC literate so I am afraid we all just enjoyed the moment – or rather minutes. It certainly made the end of our service today highly memorable. Eilidh was there with another 2 from VP – and she has talked about your funny voice every since she came home – wondering if you were better now – if you still have funny voice – so I have tried to reassure her that it was your tape recorder not you that was a bit sick and next time she sees you in her school you will be fine!!!"

Well, isn't that what we are supposed to do? Cheer one another up?
What I'm not looking forward to, however, is my next visit to the school.
(I think I'd rather go shopping!!)

*Don't forget to add your comments if you do read this.