advent conspiracy 22

This post from Chris https: //thisfragiletent.com
TRIGGER WARNING. This post deals with theological discussions which have often upset people. Read with caution and kindness, or simply move on. Not all tenets of faith need to be deconstructed, at least not by all of us, at this time of year. I hope that those who persist in reading this might understand that there is majesty and divine grace in the ordinary parts of this story too...

Let's talk about virgins...

Photo by Antonio Guirado Rivas on Pexels.com
I grew up attending an Anglican church which was very much on the 'evangelical', or even 'charismatic' wing of the church. Those for whom these labels mean little just need to know that we practised a fundamentalist version of Christianity, claiming biblical inerrant truth alongside an embrace of charismatic gifts like speaking in tongues and divine healing.
Whilst we had little time for what we saw as the idolatrous worship of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, that seemed to be happening in other parts of the church, nevertheless, we were firm in certain beliefs about Jesus' miraculous conception.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
(From 'the apostles creed')
 
Into this safe world of secure truth came the distant rumble of disruption, in the form of this man, who we regarded as the enemy:

I remember well how we denounced him because, above all else, he dared to doubt the virgin birth. A quote from this article gives some idea of the febrile atmosphere that I remember well: 
In the mid to late 1980s the bishop of Durham was a public figure in the way no church figure has quite managed since. He had been a wholly unknown theology lecturer when he went on a scarcely watched television programme to say that he didn’t believe in the literal truth of the virgin birth. He also said that the resurrection “was not just a conjuring trick with bones”. This was reported, with a dishonesty that is still astonishing, as “comparing the resurrection to a conjuring trick with bones”.
I should probably explain that “the resurrection” refers to the central Christian belief that Jesus was raised from the dead. A prime minister saying on the eve of the World Cup that football was extremely boring and they hoped England would lose quickly might carry the same emotional charge of treachery.
In Jenkins’ case, an Essex vicar raised £2,000 from his scandalised congregation to mount a campaign against Jenkins getting the job; the archbishop of York, John Habgood, went ahead and consecrated him a bishop anyway – and three days later York Minster was struck by lightning.
(Andrew Brown writing in the Guardian, 2016)
Leaving aside the fact that we seemed to believe that God would send an angry thunderbolt at the enthronement of a heretical bishop, whilst failing to intervene in any visible way at all those other human excesses like war and genocide, what this story reminds me of is what I have come to see as the house of cards version of religion. The edifice of faith I grew up always felt like a shuggly stack of cards. If you removed one of those cards, the whole thing would come tumbling down. Jenkins was shaking this tower and because of this, we hated him an everything he stood for.
 
As an aside to this story, years later I read an article in which an interviewer asked Bishop Jenkins to reflect on his leadership and in particular, asked “what if, when you get to heaven, you discover that you were wrong?” His answer will stay with me forever. “I will fall in to the arms of a loving god”.
Jenkins was trying to encourage people to interact with the stories of the Bible in the way that he was used to doing with his theological studies - to see the stories not as scientific facts, but repositories of truth of a different kind. These days, I am fully at peace with this.

[Virgin Mary crying] by Library of Congress is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0
But back to our virgin. If you are interested in exploring the narrative around Mary's virginity in a deeper way, both in terms of the theology and history of how it has been interpreted, then I very much recommend listening to this podcast.

Does it matter whether Mary was a virgin or not?
 
To many people, it matters enormously. Perhaps this is because of the house of cards stuff I was describing earlier, but more than this, for many, this part of the story is precious in that it carries an idea of the separateness, the special purity of Mary herself, and how her pregnancy was entirely different.
This kind of incarnation seems to concern itself with extra-ordinary humanity. I like the idea too that the god child was born into the mess of the ordinary life.
 
God-with-us is not a reluctant participant, holding his nose against the stench.
Mary is a woman, not a pristine test-tube experiment in a heavenly air-gapped laboratory.
I no longer need to tick a doctrinal box about the nature of divine conception.
 
There, I have said it. All these years later it still feels transgressive. I am still ducking potential thunderbolts.
And does the house of cards come tumbling down?

Photo by Photography Maghradze PH on Pexels.com
 
Mary
Where you born already divine;
A scrap of human flesh with a
God only skin deep?
 
Or did the shape of Messiah-
The mewling lion of Judah
Need nurture?
 
At the breast of this mother
Scarcely beyond child herself
You took in milk
 
What sort of woman
Might school the star maker?
Whose sharp words
 
Could cut through a
Heavenly tantrum like a
Shaft of light through shadow?
 
Did she teach the turning of
The other cheek against some teenage
Provocation?
 
Or perhaps this was always the point-
Power and might made tender flesh
The highest now most lowly
 
The filling up of hungry mouth
The arms that hold
The pride at a first step
 
The learning and the loving
The pulse of blood in fragile vein
The summer cough
 
From this material
A man was made
Who was also Messiah. 

advent conspiracy 21

This from me… about connections between the waiting season of advent and the wait for genuine action on climate change...

One of the resources I’ve been using during Advent is the Archbishop of York’s Advent Book 2022, by Nicholas Holtam (he retired as Bishop of Salisbury in 2021), entitled “Sleepers Wake: Getting Serious About Climate Change”. Holtam was the Church of England’s ‘lead bishop’ on the environment (and chaired the Environmental Working Group 2014-21). As one might imagine, given that background, the book is well researched and an excellent source for both information and reflection. I’m finding it a challenging read but a very apt subject for Advent. In his introduction, Holtam describes it thus:
“Advent is urgent. We are getting ready for Christmas and there is a lot to do. We are also reminding ourselves that Christ will come again (do I personally really think that?). We do not know when that will be so we need to be prepared. Most of the time we just get on with life and live without much urgency, but that feels less possible in a world that is becoming more and more alarmed by the climate and environmental crises”.

Lunchtime sketch in a local bar: ‘we just get on with life and live without much urgency’

The sad thing is that, as the book’s sub-title infers, we’re still only starting to get serious about the environment… it seems that we’re very good at the thinking and writing bit but, when it comes to action, we’re pretty inadequate. For example, in 2020, the General Synod of the CofE recognised the climate emergency (a little late in the day, one might think?) and committed the Church to becoming ‘net zero’ by 2030. Holtham was quick to point out that this constituted “an impossibly ambitious target”.
Another case of yet more talk and inadequate action perhaps?
We can all recall the early days of the pandemic and the dramatic effects it had on our daily lives – quite apart from the horrible business of thousands of deaths, the overstretched NHS et al. The planes had stopped flying, there was very little traffic, the streets were empty, the sounds of nature were all around us. Many people resolved that “we must never go back to the way it was before” (or words to that effect)… but, of course, we have.
And, of course, it’s not just a ‘technical fix’, there are morals involved too... it cannot be acceptable for the carbon footprint of the richest 1% to be equivalent to that of the poorest 50%.
Holtam provides MUCH food for thought. Take this, for example: “It would help if we were more fearful about the damage we are doing to environment by flying… Aviation makes up 7% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, yet few people are aware that aviation kerosene is NOT taxed, due to international agreement. The missing tax is made up for, to some extent, by the level Air Passenger Duty… but, in 2021, the UK’s Chancellor cut this by 50% on domestic flights to encourage us to fly. It is crazy that it is cheaper to fly from Manchester to London than to go by train”.
This is an extract from the wonderful John O’Donohue’s ‘Blessing On Our World’… which seems somehow appropriate:
“Believing ourselves to be helpless, we hand over all our power to forces and systems outside us that then act in our names; they go on to put their beliefs into action; and, ironically, these actions are often sinister and destructive. We live in times when the call to full and critically aware citizenship could not be more urgent”.
It’s a depressing, slow-moving world when it comes to taking action and legislating on environmental issues… especially when governments frequently seem happy to be paying ‘lip service’ to it all.
One of the positive outcomes of the environmental crisis is that it’s highlighted the need for us all to nurture the planet… to be far more mindful of its resources and to take on board sustainable policies that avoid the kind of damage caused by past actions. Sadly, there are still powerful and influential people who continue to follow strategies that reward themselves at the expense of the environment.

Photo: nuclear fusion: ‘a near near-limitless, safe, clean source of energy’? (Damien Jemison/LLNL/NNSA).

Given all our concerns about the Climate Crisis, the recent, remarkable announcement from the US about a breakthrough in nuclear fusion which could mean “a near-limitless, safe, clean source of energy”, comes as a potential ‘game-changing’ discovery. No doubt, it will take several years yet before we know the full implications of this research and the impact (or not) it might have on the future of the planet… but what a remarkable life-changing breakthrough this could be.
I only hope that such possibilities don’t mean that all those ‘climate sceptics’ will effectively tell us “we told you that science would be the answer… so, forget all that talk of having to nurture the planet, we can now pursue stuff that will simply maximise financial rewards, increase our influence on the world and its people”.
Power, greed and riches for the few… at the expense of the few (and the planet)? 

advent conspiracy 20

Today we hear from Graham Peacock. He used to be a methodist minister - actually, do you ever stop? - now he works as a chaplain in mental health services. Here he reflects on his own season, amidst the losses of later middle age.

There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
(This is part of a set reading for the first Sunday in Advent, November 27th)

There are often readings like this on the first Sunday of Advent: I've always struggled with them. At first, they felt like the apocryphal embarrassing aunt whose presence is tolerated once a year at Christmas: the family heaving a sigh of relief when they leave, knowing that they won't have to see them again until next Christmas.

(By the way, I do not have an aunt, so I can only speculate what they are like).
Then, when faith made sense to me, I was around Christians who believed that these strange, wild prophecies were literally true, ignoring the colourful literary imaginings and poetry and - it seemed to me - invariably remaking them into angry prose. Strangely this God often seemed to hate all the things they did, only more so.
I've only preached from them when I've had to do so and I haven't in the last few years: I knew death and destruction happened, but that was in far off places. I'm middle class: bad things happen to other people- the villages near where I live don't need to hear readings like this.
And then...
Just over two years ago, a friend in the pub looked around at our group of friends and said something like; 'We've all done very well: mid 50s and we are all still here'. I laughed, but over the next few weeks I stopped laughing; within that group two long term relationships unravelled, one person developed a lifelong health condition, and another got a terminal diagnosis.
The suddenness shocked me- it still does; what I imagined was a stable group- a bulwark against the uncertainties of life, was fractured.
It is perhaps a mistake to narrow down the majesty, unevenness and unpredictability of that reading at the start, to the tiny world of myself and my friends. However, in my experience, micro shocks make me think about bigger issues like nothing else: I was never good about preaching the big issues- not that I couldn't comprehend them or that I'm not interested in them- but rather I was liable to lapse into generalities or comfortable bromides.
The micro shocks I experienced through those events opened me up again to something bigger and more profound - all that I'm certain of could disappear in an instant: what I hold onto is only provisional. I think that's why these set readings appear on the 1st Sunday in Advent - to remind us of that in shocking, sometimes opaque imagery: it's no wonder that I/we want to shoo them away.
Maybe next year I could chose to preach on the 1st Sunday of Advent.
Maybe.
Maybe one day... 

advent conspiracy 19

This from Chris https://thisfragiletent.com/

It goes without saying that here in the northern hemisphere, the advent season is inseparable from the deepening of winter, the shortening of days towards icy darkness. The longing for light. It is this juxtaposition that adds immeasurably to the poignancy of how we approach it, so much so that I find it difficult to imagine what a southern hemisphere advent, with just the opposite trajectory, might look and feel like.
 
Here there is also a feeling that we are treading pre-Christian paths too, in that the traditions that come to us only in fragments suggest that our ancestors also felt the spiritual significance of this season, so much so that they celebrated their own rebirth in the great festival of Yule, the winter solstice. Of course, any of these fragments live on in our Christmas traditions - the date itself, the mistletoe, the father christmas, the tree, the candlelight...
 
Rather than disturbing our Christian world view, I think it is more helpful to attempt towards a gratefulness because we stand in a long line of people trying to hold and help each other through the darkness.
I don't need to tell many of you about how hard the season of darkness can be, or why these depths of winter, approaching the enforced jollity of Christmas, can sometimes be the loneliest place.
 
Perhaps it was not like that in the more connected, agricultural communities that were previously celebrated the winter solstice, but then again, there are always outliers in any human grouping. Those cast low or cast out.
Despite the stark beauty, winter can be cruel.

In to this dark place, the Jesus that comes through the old stories, and through the lives of those trying to hold and help, is not one who makes the winter go away. That searing passage from the beginning of John's gospel about the darkness not being able to put out the light never pretended that darkness would not continue to exist.
Light exists in the midst of darkness, just like solstice comes at the depth of winter.
 
I would like to share with you a poem, which means a lot to me. It was my attempt to banish my own winter blues and to look for light. 
Light of the world

The low winter sun takes power from
Puddles of last night’s rain and I turn away
Resonating to signals sent from distant stars
 
Something glints in the tops of bare branches -
A flash of wing or a white tooth or the
Coming together of choirs of angels
 
And in a wet manger of clogged earth, summer
Sleeps, waiting for light to burst out
Brand-new hallelujahs
 
For behold, the light is with us. The light is
In us. The light shines in the darkest places -
It even shines in me. 

advent conspiracy 18

This from Chris Goan https://thisfragiletent.com/

Photo by Alex Wolf mx on Pexels.com
This post invites you to do a bit of pondering...
One of the gifts of Advent is to set the business of hope in both a historical and an extra-historical context. In other words, hoping has been going on for a long time, even if our own version always seems the most pressing. Even in the span of my own lifetime this seems true, in that my own adult children believe that the political and economic circumstances they are forced to endure are the worst ever - a view that is unchanged despite my description of the Thatcher years I grew up in.
 
To help us think about this a little more, I offer you two videos. The first one is rather long and describes anthropological and architectural work to try to understand the pre-agricultural hopes of ancient civilisations.
 
Why? I hear you ask.
The answer to this is perhaps more evident in the light of the second video, which is of me reading a poem.
 
Until the realities of man-made climate change and ecocide became more widely appreciated, human history was almost always understood in terms of rise, ascendence, progress, advance. We moved from being primitive towards civilisation. It is perhaps of note that the history we speak of is only a fraction of human history. Homo Sapiens - people just like us - have been around for at least three hundred thousand years, but our knowledge only goes back a few thousand. For all of those year, our ancestors hoped.
 
What where they hoping for? David Wengrow (in the video) describes a fascinating account of the abandonment of a sophisticated city, and a return to the land. The hint here is that people may have trying to find a better way to live.
Just like us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR-EN0YIBIg
 
Here is my poem, written a few years ago, recorded in the spring hills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qojg-wFZD1A

advent conspiracy 17

This from me...

For the past two months, I’ve been attending a remarkable weekly ‘Leg Club’ (don’t laugh, it’s a clinic specialising in treating people with all sorts of horrible foot and leg issues)… and, brilliantly, they’ve just discharged me! It’s led by 3-5 specialist nursing staff plus a team of perhaps 8 volunteers. They probably deal with perhaps 30-40 patients a day. Most of the patients are ‘regulars’ who come to have their condition monitored and their specialist dressings changed.
It’s a rather humbling, compassionate experience - which includes nurses kneeling on the floor and carefully washing patients’ feet (and legs).
It’s an almost biblical scenario.

Over the past weeks, I’ve been cared for by the same nurse on three occasions. We’ve chatted and it turned out that, apart from her weekly attendance at ‘Leg Clinic’, she was a full-time Carer for her mother… and apparently had been for most of her adult life (the nurse is perhaps in her late 40s). The last time we’d chatted, she told me that her Mum had recently been transferred to a ‘home’ and so I enquired how her mother was getting on.
The nurse paused, looked at me and gently explained that her mother had died a fortnight ago.
As you can imagine, I was quite devastated.

We continued to chat about her mother and how the nurse had been coping since her death (I’d previously got the impression that the nurse was single and lived at her mother’s house). She told me that her mother’s death had left an enormous vacuum in her life – it had happened so suddenly and that her mother was ‘her life’… and that’s what she did. What was going to happen now? What would she do? How would she cope? We continued to chat quietly and I hopefully said the ‘right things’. I even asked her if I could give her hug… and she said yes, that would be ok… and so I did.
And then she said: “My mother was quite religious and fairly recently told me that she’d like to die either at Easter or Christmas… and so I think she’d be happy”.

I’ve been thinking of the nurse quite a lot over the past few days.
I hope she’ll be alright.
I hope she’ll be able to take time to evaluate things and be able to find a new focus in her life.
I hope her mother’s God will be with her on her journey this Advent. 

advent conspiracy 16

Welcome Steve (Page)!
Introduction from Chris Goan: Today we welcome a new voice to the conspiracy - Poet Steve Page. I first met him years ago as one of the poets contributing to an anthology. I remember well how his playful use of words impacted me. More recently we have had the pleasure of him staying at our house for a few days, sadly because of the loss of his mother in law and the need to travel to attend her funeral. It was great to spend some time with him talking poetry. Here, Steve's advent reflection starts with a statue of Eric Morecombe. Who else?

Christmas Past
I'm sitting in The Lighthouse Cafe in Morecambe Bay.   Looking up from my scrambled eggs I can see Eric Morecambe (dancing of course), silhouetted against a cloudy sky.  Someone has placed a party hat on his head - I've no idea whether that's a permanent feature, but it's apt as I'm reminded of his TV appearances with Ernie and the laughter that accompanied them from our family sofa.  And so I drift and reminisce.
 
I know that Advent is a call to anticipate, to look forward into the not yet known chapters that await us.  But I'm also drawn to reminiscence as I anticipate another Christmas while imperfectly recalling Christmases past, a warm childhood, a loud family and Christmas specials like the Morecambe & Wise shows. And it's in that tension of the push and pull that I find myself once again.
 
I am grateful for the prompts to think ahead, to place value in the wait, the anticipation of what is in store for me and to perhaps make some plans.  But I'm also grateful for the prompts to remember, to recall the path that brought me here.
 
Today I'm driving south back home having spent a few days in Scotland to attend my mother in laws' funeral.  Like a lot of us I feel that I've been to too many funerals these past few years, but I must admit that each one has been a prompt to think back and remember, to give thanks and to express love to family and friends.
And each one has also been a prompt to think ahead, to garner more determination to make each year count.
 
And, not for the first time, I dug around for this old poem:
Remember
Remember to think better,
think further, think deeper and with vigour.
Pepper your remember with colour, with light,
with friends who delight.
Boost your remember with story, with histories,
with cramped group selfies.
And remember your remembers
whenever, wherever you drift off centre.
And there you'll rediscover your defenders,
your never-surrenders - against all contenders.
Then you'll remember your forevers.
 
Bonus feature:  Harry Nilsson, 'Remember'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=ujBU32Ghvgs 

advent conspiracy 15

As much of the country is wearing the first snowfall, this seems appropriate. Today Bob Fraser treats us to a lovely song written with his wife Val. We’ll let him tell you about it…
(By the way, Bob has a long history of making fantastic music, including writing songs still being sung in churches up and down the country).

Eaglesham in the Snow by Stewart Macfarlane is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0
 
There are a few songs that I’ve written that can only really be sung at certain times of the year. They just don’t seem relevant if I sing them outside their seasonal references.
 
One such song is Snow on the Roof, with lyrics written mainly by my wife Val, with a few lines and the tune added by me. It was written during a time when, amongst other challenges, we were both going through the decline and eventual loss of parents. The lyrics I added were in what song-writers refer to as the Middle 8 – ‘Joy and pain run side by side, like ebb and flow of time and tide. Friendship matters and family too, so here in my heart I remember you’.
 
This resonates with the comments by Graham Peacock in Advent Conspiracy 11 when he refers to older hymns saying ‘they seem to hold joy and pain together better than any other form of song that I know’. The video Val created to go with Snow on the Roof tried to capture those feelings of joy and pain running in parallel, together with the importance of family ties and friendships in our lives.
 
This season, and the songs that accompany it, can lead to a kind of mellowing, a melting of hearts hardened by life’s challenges. We remember Christmases of old, sometimes all the way back to our own childhood, grieve once more for the folks who are no longer with us, and huddle around the fire to feel warmth and comfort from those close to us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8p3gNgu1Kg 

advent conspiracy 14

Today’s contribution is from Chris Goan:
Before you correct my spelling (I am dyslexic after all) I did mean to spell practising with an 's' rather than a 'c'.
 
This side of the Atlantic there is a difference, in that 'practice' (noun) is a naming word, whereas 'practise' (verb) is a doing word. The distinction is very important when applied to spirituality I think. Too often we have named our doctrines - written them in gold ink - and mistaken this for the hard work of practising the adventure of faith, in all its fumbling uncertainty and ephemeral transcendence.
 
As I consider my own experience of this kind of practise, I have to acknowledge that I have spent too long 'practicing', as if for an exam that I have under prepared for. I have been too concerned with getting things 'right', forgetting that most spiritual journeys are advanced more reliably by getting things wrong - by failure and falling flat on our faces.
We practise not to get things perfect, but in order to stumble towards grace.
 
As ever, Richard Rohr puts it better (from 'Falling Upward').

I was reminded of the business of practising again during a conversation with Steve Broadway (a name you will recognise as one of the contributors to this 'conspiracy'.) I was asking him if he saw his remarkable artistic practise as a 'spiritual'. After all, it is a daily meditative experience, involving something I can perhaps best describe only in poetry:
Incense scent of shaved pencil
Scratch of point on paper
Trace the turn of heel
Whilst hardly looking
 
Steve was characteristically modest, as if unaware of the rarity of his gift and uncomfortable with promoting his 'scribblings' as anything as grand as spiritual discipline, but I think that is exactly what it is.
For him, it is the pause, the looking deeper, the vitalisation, the tingle of connection to the undefinable beyond, the moments 'in the flow'. It is a different way of looking - at small things, with love.
 
It has nothing to do with practice, because to label it, to try to contain it within doctrine would be too pompous and self-consciously 'religious'. It is not seeking to make converts -even of its own adherents - rather it is the grounding of being on something both beautiful and broken.
(I have tried to describe the relationship between spirituality and creativity before, using the term theopoetics. If this idea is of interest you can read a bit about it here.)

Lest you start to think about this kind of practise as requiring talent of the kind displayed by Steve, let me say that this is not my point at all. I feel strongly that this kind of pracise is hyper ordinary, not extra-ordinary. It is a gift of attention, not an attention placed on giftedness.
 
Here in post-modern, post-pandemic, post-religious UK, I think we are experiencing something of an unfolding crisis of identity. We cast around for some anchor for our sense of being; some kind of over-arching narrative to give shape and sense to our lives. Into this vacuum, some call us towards patriotism and nationalism. Others invest themselves in sport or the pursuit of unique experience. We all buy in to the dream of aspirational ownership of consumer ideals.
 
None of these things are necessarily 'bad', but many of us still feel them to be hollow, empty of something we find almost impossible to describe.
Is this not the very reason why we turn again to mark the season of advent? Or I could say, why we practise our advent?

We all have at least one more journey in us. One more trip into the unknown, using what we have to try to connect with something we sense but can never fully know.
 
The best we have, my friends, is within those moments when we stop and look deeper, using whichever tools we have - pencil, guitar, knitting needles, camera, or simply...
 
...silence.
 
May yours be full of grace and wonder. 

advent conspiracy 13

From me again today (sorry!)... 

Over the past few days, I’ve been reflecting on contrasting lives...
Here in Bristol, especially on weekend evenings, the city’s streets are heaving with people ‘out for a good time’… the bars are crowded, the restaurants and food outlets appear pretty busy (I appreciate that some hospitality businesses are struggling to find staff and therefore continue to live with all the uncertainties of running a business). Clearly, a lot of people are spending a lot of money… and I suspect that many of them can’t really justify doing so… and, when the January bills arrive, won’t be able to.
It’s almost as if some people are burying their heads in the sand – ‘buy now, pay later’ (or not) – because they perhaps just can’t face the reality of what lies ahead.
 
I’ve been thinking about politicians who earn ridiculous amounts of money for giving a single speech… about a hedge fundmanager who, last year, was paid more £1.5million a day in dividends.
There are so many such examples.
Meanwhile, around 14.5 million people are living in poverty in the UK, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's UK Poverty Profile 2022. That's more than one in every five people. Of these, 8.1 million are working-age adults, 4.3 million are children and 2.1 million are pensioners.

Here in the UK, as we enter the challenging winter period, huge numbers of people are anxious about being able to cope with the so-called ‘cost of living crisis’. It’s affecting people right now – with food, energy, transport and mortgages costs having all increased quite alarmingly – but winter will inevitably bring even greater challenges.
Such worries will inevitably have severe implications for people’s mental and physical health. In many instances, it will put family relationships under great strain; some might end up losing their homes. Many simply don’t know how they’ll be able to cope and, if they are, how long they’ll be able to cope for.
So, yes, this Advent will certainly be a time of waiting and anticipating… but perhaps, for many, not quite in the traditional or spiritual sense.

advent conspiracy 12

Today some words from one of Chris’s friends, Yvonne Lyon, multi-talented artist/musician and star of TV and stage across the land. She has ten studio albums to her name, and has that poetic gift of framing things in words and music in such a way as to take you deeper into yourself.
If you do not know her music, you really should. Check out her website, or Youtube, or all the good things on bandcamp.

Today she reflects on an old Christmas song and how music can connect us to deep memories, particularly during this time of year.

This song is now ten years old. It was my tiny, and fairly gentle protest against a certain coffee conglomerate in the West End of Glasgow. The 'red cups' were eagerly anticipated and it was them that seemed to now herald in Christmas. The song was also inspired by my Dad who would call this 'the silly season'. For some reason, we both found Christmas difficult. Ironically, we would get together and go shopping on Christmas eve (or thereabouts) in an attempt to enter in to the spirit and no doubt to buy a last-minute present for Mum. We would end up sitting in the aforementioned coffee conglomerate wondering what it was all about. Dad never had the answers. That used to trouble me. But looking back I'm glad that Dad didn't pretend to have them. No platitudes but quite often a humble nod to the mystery of it all.

Christmas is even harder now. Dad passed away on 18th Dec 2020 in the heart of Covid restrictions, when so-called politicians broke the rules to become celebrities that now broker book deals and when we could only have 20 people at his funeral. I wonder how many similar stories there are (the grieving families that is, not the politician/celebrities).

Despite the pain and grief, I still believe in Christmas. I also believe Dad does.
Richard Rohr in his Centre For Action and Contemplation devotionals wrote:
You don't die into the kingdom of God, you awaken into it.
I like this.
After all… what is Christmas if it is not all about life, life, life?

advent conspiracy 11

This from Graham Peacock: http://wearilyhopeful.co.uk...
chaplain, music lover, impresario, pantomime dame… among other things.

We start with some more music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cppww7NoOYM
 
Sometimes the songs we sing stop connecting with us.
I’ve preached and led worship for years. In the last few years choosing to pick something that I can sing with integrity has been a struggle.
 
In the early years of my Christian experience I used to like worship songs, then I moved through tolerating them to finally if I was at a large gathering finding ways of not singing them. When I hit crises I felt that the only solution that they offered was just to song louder.
 
It didn’t work for me.
 
Then I started going back to the older hymns: largely the ones that I had been bought up and first sang as a child without really understanding their meaning. The language is dated, but often quite beautiful. They do another thing for me now: they seem to hold joy and pain together better than any other form of song that I know.
 
In Advent, I like singing this hymn the most of all. Some days I struggle to contain the emotion when I do. I don’t know why; perhaps it is the tune which seems wistful and full of longing or maybe it is the childhood memories that it elicits. Sometimes I think that I prefer the uncertainty and ‘not yet’ of Advent hymns than the ‘It’s here!’ of Christmas carols.
 
As I’ve got older, the words have also begun to resonate: I get the feeling that I’m caught up in a bigger, centuries old story of people longing for deliverance and hope. These people never got to see it, but lived and behaved as if it could be; if not for them, for others yet to be born.
 
That faith moves me: sometimes I feel that I’ve lost it, yet when I sing that hymn, it returns. Maybe what is sung about won’t happen in the way of the images and beliefs that I used to have. Perhaps though it is the longing for deliverance and hope that gives us reason still to go on and still to keep singing.
 
Either way, I like the idea that the hymn isn’t impregnated by the first person singular and that I’m not exhorted to ‘rise up/take this land/press into the promise’ or any of the repetitive activist cliches that have long ceased to speak to me. In contrast the hymn seems more relaxed and comfortable with itself and with mystery.
 
This version is by Sufjan Stevens. I like how it starts almost playfully before sliding into devotion. The fragility of his voice and the quietness of this version makes it all the more powerful: you don’t always have to ramp the volume up to 11 to encounter the Divine.

advent conspiracy 10

from Chris: https://thisfragiletent.com/

It is time to break out my winter music, which starts with this sublime offering from Overthe Rhine which almost always reduces me to tears, so much so that I save it for soft days when I need something to help me get deeper into this season.

I listened to it with a friend today, through snot and tears, at the same time trying to explain why this kind of crying is a good thing, for me at least. Music of this kind breaks through to something that matters, which I can only describe using the words of Jean Vanier:“
"The quest for the eternal, all-beautiful, all-true and all-pure, and the quest to be close to the poor and most broken people appear to be so contradictory. And yet, in the broken heart of Christ, these two quests are united. Jesus reveals to us that he loves his Father, and is intimately linked to him; at the same time, he is himself in love with each person and in a particular way with the most broken, the most suffering and the most rejected.”
Jean Vanier, ‘Community And Growth’

We worked away over the weekend, at a ‘Winter market’, selling the ceramic art that pays our bills. This meant a couple of days in the middle of Glasgow along with our daughter and son-in-law who were there for the same reason. After a busy Saturday, we all walked towards a chip shop that served safe gluten free grub, through the massed Saturday night revellers.
The shop was predictably busy, so we queued to be served then waited for our order, at which point I noticed a girl sitting on the floor, leaning on an overflowing dustbin. She was young, obviously freezing despite the thin blanket she was wrapped up in and appeared to be from a middle-eastern country. Smiling as if to reassure people that she was OK really, she held out a polystyrene cup towards the mass of moving humanity and from time to time gently utter the word 'please'.
Something inside me broke. I find myself standing on the pavement openly weeping, this time not in a good way.
All the same questions I have asked a hundred times crowded in. How is this possible? How can we have become a country in which this is regarded as acceptable? Surely she is not safe? Where is she sleeping tonight? What can I do? Who in power can I shout at right now?
In the end, we bought her chips and she ate them ravenously as if it was the first meal of the day. She assured us she had a bed for the night at a local shelter and I hope this was true, but still here she was on the street, trying to scrape money together for the next meal.
The system of support we have carved out from the wealth of those who have too much in this country has shrunken down to this.
Today, I wait for the god who comes first to all that is beautiful and all that is broken.
Not because he comes like Father Christmas, laden with free gifts. I wait because how else can things change? How else, unless we can see things through the eyes of a god who looks up at us from the gutter, asking if we are weeping with him?

Photo: Timur Weber on Pexels.com

Last year, pondering some similar matters, I re-wrote these words to a famous carol. I am sure you will recognise it. 

What can I give him, wealthy as I am?
Does he need an i-phone or a well-aged Parma ham?
Should I bring him trainers, a pair of brand-new jeans?
Or Halo for the X-box (whatever the hell that means)
 
In a tower block in Camden, a woman breaks her heart
Her credit score is hopeless, her marriage fell apart
Her cupboards all lie empty, her clothes are wafer thin
Her kids can thank the food bank for turkey from a tin
 
If I were a kind man, I would bring good cheer
I would house the homeless, if for only once a year
I’d buy my cards from Oxfam, for virtue is no sin
I’d send some Christmas pudding to poor old Tiny Tim
 
In the bleak midwinter, frosty winds still moan
And Mr Wilson’s waited ages to get the council on the phone
He’s worried cos his boiler has given up the ghost
And since Mabel got dementia, she feels cold more than most
 
If I were a wise man, I would do my part
I’d sell that gold and incense and invest it for a start
In gilt-edged annuities and solid pension schemes
For without good fiscal planning, what can ever be redeemed?
 
In a lock-up by the roadside a bastard-child is born
To another teenage mother whose future looks forlorn
A host of heavenly angels up high in star-strewn sky
Sing blue-scale hallelujahs as lorries thunder by.

advent conspiracy 9

Today, Bob Fraser takes us on a bit of journey about the origin of our seasonal festivities.

Photo: Samuel Becerra on Pexels.com
In this reflective season of Advent, I’ve been thinking about traditions and religious festivals, and last week I re-watched the seasonal film ‘The Man Who Invented Christmas’.
At this time of year the amount of daylight is getting less and my brief and rather unscientific research suggests that the Norse tradition of Yule marked the winter solstice - the day with least sunshine, which occurs around 21st or 22nd December in the Northern Hemisphere. Dec 25th was also when the Romans celebrated with a festival for one of their Gods, Saturn, (Saturnalia).
 
In our western culture, an eclectic mix of secular and sacred have, over the years, been fused together to form something else altogether – a bit like copper and tin making bronze.  Somehow The Roman good luck practice of using Holly and the Celtic Druids use of Mistletoe have found their way into the mix. The Druids seemed to be reflecting the ancient Greek practice of people kissing underneath mistletoe during weddings to symbolise peace and people coming together. Even the German tradition of candlelit Christmas trees, has its origin in symbolic use of evergreens in ancient Egypt and Rome. The giving of presents was part of Roman tradition too, as gifts were offered in worship of the God Saturn. It seems then that many of the traditions we associate with Christmas have their origin around two thousand years ago.
 
So here we are in the Christian season of Advent with Christmas on the horizon, and, as a believer, I am about to embark on a journey of stories and traditions, many of which have their origins in pagan celebrations.
 
Perhaps the Romans would have been aggrieved at their traditions being hijacked and trampled on, in just the same way that I felt a tad upset some years ago when the Post Office had a spell of not producing stamps with a religious image on them, and some local authorities banned the word Christmas, in an attempt to reflect a more inclusive and multi-cultural approach.
 
To be honest, I’m way more accepting now of differing traditions than I used to be when I was younger. Issues are no longer as black and white. Yes, I’m uncomfortable with some of the excesses of this season, but it’s good to mark these celebrations in some way. Cultural traditions, beliefs and expressions change over time. Each generation may adapt things from earlier practices. So I don’t expect everyone to align with all the things that I might believe in, just as I might not align with theirs. Surely, a measure of mutual acceptance of the differing stories is more likely to bring peace on Earth than haggling about whether celebrations should be secular or sacred.
 
So despite it being an enjoyable film, it wasn’t Charles Dickens or the Victorians who invented all of our western Christmas traditions after all. Perhaps they just pinched ideas from the Romans and the Druids and forged them into a new narrative for Christmas. 

advent conspiracy 8

Today’s offering is from me…

For many, Christmas has become a focus for family gatherings, food+drink, giving+receiving presents, trees+decorations, music playlists, opening doors on Advent calendars, Christmas cards, yearning for snow (but only the kind that makes everything white for just two days and disappears by Boxing Day), family walks, bubble+squeak on Boxing Day, party games and fun+laughter. It might even include midnight mass – but perhaps only as part of a family tradition.
Sketch: Christmas Steps, Bristol.

Does God feature at all?

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) recently published figures for 2021 indicating that, for the first time, less than 50% of people in England+Wales identify themselves as Christians (46.2%, compared with 59.3% in 2011… with 37.2% as of ‘no religion’, compared with 25.2% ten years ago).
What do I believe anymore?
Next year, I will have been a Christian for fifty years. At times, it’s been a bumpy journey but, despite my doubts, there remains something that continues to hold me.
 
Confused+stumbling, stubborn+steadfast… waiting+wondering.

This sketch is of one of our bookshelves at home. As you can see, the image includes three ‘Golden Syrup’ tins. In fact, there are a total of TEN of them on this shelf(!) – including one with holly leaves and the phrase ‘Bake, Eat and Be Merry’ and another which contains fourteen palm crosses. As you can imagine, both the tins and the palm crosses have been accrued over several years.
They’re a reminder of the passing of time.
 
And for those of us in our dotage perhaps (as Bob Mortimer frequently asked Paul Whitehouse in their ‘Gone Christmas Fishing’ television programmes): “So, how many Christmases have we got left then Paul?”
The continuity and the appreciation of experiences gathered over the years (not just consuming golden syrup!).
The highs and lows of our spiritual journeys and the sense of God somehow always being there along the way.
 
And, of course, the journey continues…
All those possibilities (and uncertainties)… the extraordinary within the ordinary. 

advent conspiracy 7

This from Chris: https://thisfragiletent.com

Lord of Lords.
Saviour.
Prince of Peace.
 
It may be a surprise to some that these titles - which we know so well as religious descriptors of Jesus Christ that have been sung through generations - were borrowed from an earlier historical figure, known first as the EmperorAugustus.
 
In the year 34 BCE, Augustus defeated Mark Anthony and Cleopatra in the Battle of Actium, and this Victory ushered in a period known as the Pax Romana, defined this way in Wikipedia:
...The Pax Romana (Latin for 'Roman peace') is a roughly 200-year-long timespan of Roman history which is identified as a period and as a golden age of increased as well as sustained Roman imperialism, relative …
… as commencing from the accession of Augustus, founder of the Roman principate, in 27 BC and concluding in 180 AD with the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the "Five Good Emperors".
 
In other words, the first advent of Jesus happened right in the middle of the Roman peace, which was really no peace at all. Not for those oppressed by an expansionist unequal empire.
It was in to this world that the Prince of Peace arrived as total contrast to the Prince of Peace.
 
I have been thinking about how my lifetime has been lived in peace. Sure, just as during Pax Romana, there have been wars and skirmishes happened all the time away somewhere else, but these cost me almost nothing. However, just as during the Pax Romana, a different kind of peacelessness has been gathering. It might be understood as the end of the Pax Britannica and the beginning of the Pax Americana.
In total contrast to the Pax Christi.
 
This Advent, we need the upside-down principles of the empire of the Prince of Peace to disturb us still.

Peace to the world
 
After war came peace
But after peace came profit
And after profit came wealth
And after wealth came inequality
And after inequality came accumulation
And after accumulation many were left with nothing
 
And with nothing there is no peace at all
After the war came peace
But after peace came empire
And after empire came corporation
And after corporation came globalisation
And after globalisation came exploitation
And after exploitation came exhaustion
And those who are exhausted feel no peace
 
After the war came peace
But after the peace came aspiration
And after aspiration came property
And after property came debt
And after debt came foreclosure
And after foreclosure came homelessness
And without a home, there is no peace
 
After the war came peace
But after the peace came consumption
And after consumption came more consumption
And consumption became the only thing that counted
And after consumption came obsolescence
And after obsolescence came more consumption
For without consumption, there is no peace.
 
After the war came peace
But after peace we lost our unity
And for unity we need an enemy
And because of the enemy we need a leader
And great leaders need a great army
And a great army needs a war
And with war there is no peace. 

advent conspiracy 6

Today's advent conspiracy comes from Bob  (http://wearilyhopeful.co.uk/) who takes inspiration from The Detectorists to imagine something just below the surface that we half perceive...
If you haven’t watched any of the excellent TV series ‘Detectorists’ then I can heartily recommend it. You can find it on BBC iPlayer here. 

The series first aired on BBC Four in October 2014, and it’s written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, who stars alongside Toby Jones. The two key players are Andy (Mackenzie Crook - The Office, Pirates of the Caribbean) who wrote and directed the series, and Lance (Toby Jones - character actor in many films like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Hunger Games, Captain America, Jurrassic World and numerous TV series).
 
The series is set in the fictional small town of Danebury in northern Essex, and the plot revolves around the lives and metal detecting ambitions of Andy and Lance. They both have an obsession to find buried treasure, but, more often than not, all that the metal detectors pick up is a ring pull off an aluminium can, a metal button or a few nails.
 
They are convinced that there is something to find and, despite the set-backs, they keep searching. There’s a wonderful drone shot of the field at the end of the first series when they head off to the pub after another fruitless day’s searching and the shot reveals the outline of a large structure below the surface. It reminded me of times when there has been a long spell with no rain and the outline of buried building remains are revealed as a different shade of colour to the surrounding ground. There’s something there, but they can’t yet see it from where they are looking.
 
I wonder then what grand obsessions existed in the story from two thousand years ago when humble shepherds left their sheep to follow a bright light in the sky, and richer noblemen made a long journey from their homeland far away. What drew them to a small village in the Middle East? How often on their respective journeys would they have doubted what they were doing? How often would they have considered turning back? Was it something they had long anticipated? Was it a story of a hope to come which had been passed down and re-told through many generations? Something must have drawn them onwards.
 
In the initial post of this Advent Conspiracy by Chris, he says: ‘in moments and in places like this, I find myself sensing something beyond myself that draws me’.
For me too there is something about Advent which draws me and provokes reflection about a journey bigger than our journey; about a story bigger than the story we find ourselves in.

advent conspiracy 5

Today’s contribution from me…
The counterpoint between struggle and persistence. The work of the spirit has both, but it also has moments of transcendent joy (perhaps transcendence always has to have the absence of transcendence, in the same way that light can only be seen through darkness?)...

Reflecting on life’s uncertainties…
Depressing stuff affecting so many lives
Like wars, sanctuary-seekers and homelessness
Abuse, poverty and fear
Hopelessness and despair
The cost of living and heating homes
Some having to decide whether to eat or heat
The haves and the have nots
Caught up in a spiral of hardship.
Sketch: Bristol apartments.

Reflecting on my spiritual path...
Typically struggling through the wilderness
Often intolerant of biblical interpretations
Annoyed by what I think are lop-sided homilies
And put off by the exuberant faith of some
My own blinkered attitudes don’t help
But still I’m happy to keep searching for meaning
Still seeing goodness in the world
And heaven on earth right now.
Photographs: views from the balcony.