the joy of watching a squirrel hang by the tip of his tail to reach the suet,
then the elegant swirl of grey and gold; the puff of snow as gravity reclaims sovereignty.

The first person I saw this year had nothing whatsoever to do with ‘work’.

She came (with her family) even though she knew I’d have told her not to because I wasn’t feeling well.   She came, knowing that I wouldn’t  have much energy for conversation, and found ways to make it work anyway.

Sometimes friends know what’s good for us, even when our own instincts say otherwise.

Blessed be she.

Thank God for snow.

I’m ready for it to melt now (urgently) but thank God for snow.

I expected the days after Christmas to be filled with godchildren.  But ice at my end, and swine flu at theirs meant that we all stayed home.   And, as much as I wanted to see them, this seems to have been exactly what I needed.

Of course, I was tired after Christmas.  We all are.  But I was totally unprepared how deep the tiredness went and how welcome the days of silence would be.  On Monday, I have a vague memory of time stretching to infinity.  I think I made cookies.  I tidied the kitchen.  I read a bit.  I taught Molly how to knit. That’s all I remember.

Tuesday was much the same — though it was the study rather than the kitchen that got cleaned, and I progressed from fiction to biography (a rare genre for me — but when I was in Chester, Rowan William’s biography was the closest thing I could find to theology, and I bought it…).  Molly learned to make rice pudding.

Wednesday was the short thaw.  I bravely oh so bravely went to buy birdseed, and that was me done for the day.

Thursday was supposed to be ‘back to work’.  But I woke up shivering and coughing, and spent the day reading  and playing with my diaries instead. (Molly learned about discursive styles in Luke’s  parables.)  I suspect that as real as the symptoms were it was mostly in my head — my body saying ‘not quite yet.  we’re not done with this resting business’.

I’ve watched a cut on my hand heal, and have been amazed at how much faster that happens when stress is low.   I’ve watched emotions heal as I try to learn from some things that are difficult, and try to let other things go.  (no scalpels yet, in this process of discernment,  just room to breath).

It has been a gracious, much needed time when eternity broke through the normal routine, and snow created sabbath.

I hope your Christmas has been similarly blessed by long slow days full of what you needed.

And now to begin again: striving this year to live from the gifts of God’s spaciousness instead of the drivenness of resolutions and the so-tempting lists of things I will try to reform.

Molly is missing the Christmas mobile now that it is in church.  I think she thought it was her birth right.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, as I plan to once it gets started on Monday.  The presence of godchildren should ensure much baking, and little work for a few days.

I’ve just discovered a friend’s blog, after she discovered mine.

Haven’t had time to read it yet, but found the perfect video for all who want a few moments of distraction amidst the Christmas rush.

So, I’m a timid sort when it comes to ice.

Last week I sugggested we candel the choir rehearsal and the 80 year olds all laughted at me and put their boots on.

So, not much gets me to venture out.
Not much, not least, when there are sermons to write and pew sheets to print off, and a church to polish and decorate.

But out I go, to buy sherry for the Midnight service, and to pick up the candy canes at the post office.

Liturgical necessities, you see.  Along with — it seems — small silver stars.

But next year, would someone please remind me that — if you ask them nicely and in plenty of time — Tesco’s delivers.  And they won’t even know they can’t get the lorry up the drive till it’s too late, and then the driver might just be persuaded to carry the box straight through the church door…

Off I go.

In the midst of  a busy weekend, time to share today’s distractions.

Molly has a plan.  She thinks that if she sits between clock and carol books, lap time will come sooner.   She may be right.

Today was filled with children.  Newton Primary Christmas service at the Cathedral, followed by a delightful hour with H. and her class at Dunblane Primary playing priestly-dress-up,  then a meeting with our Lay-Reader-Young-Church-leader-title-defying-community-worker and the headteacher of St Mary’s Primary to cross t’s and dot i’s for next week’s service and to devise a strategy for the rest of the year.

My diary couldn’t have been kinder to me today.  I woke up knowing that I had reached that point before Christmas where there is too much to do and too little time but just enough time that one mustn’t go into triple speed yet.  And knowing too that it was going to be one of those days that I just wanted to play ostrich and bury my head in the sand.

That is much harder to do amidst the laughter and curiosity of  the middle-schoolers (a good American phrase…)

It was not the most productive ‘work’ day ever, but there were many blessings on the way.

And if anyone can think of a good short hand way of naming what N does, do let us know, won’t you?

A very small group of people are nobly forging the Advent blog this year:  not daily posts, but posts that are far more frequent than I had dared hope.

There is new writing and photographs, and carefully made offerings of poetry and prose.

If you have been blogging better than I have lately, and still have a wider net to cast, please do use your connections to send people to Love Blooms Bright.

I have returned to a struggle with language.

Six years of ordained life has not dimmed the inner flinching each time I must speak and pray phrases that exclude half the human race.  There is no going back to easy innocence once one has been led by the hand through the feminist critique of language and had consciousness raised.

But I live in a hypocritical state:  believing one thing, and saying another.  ‘Affirming my faith’ even, in words that betray.

The one exception I make to all this liturgical flinching is the ease with which I can sing old and beloved hymns.  Sometimes, a more inclusive version is easy and right; but often, I am happy to sing old worlds to an old tune, and to chalk it up to our tradition.  I imagine the saints all around, and accept that I am singing their songs, in the best words, the best truths, they had at the time.

… and in the service booklet (not always, but often; and always if the crowds are gathering) I tip my hat to our forebearers by printing quite clearly next to the worlds:  4th Century; 8th Century; 18th Century; 19th Century.

Where it all comes un-stuck is ‘2oth Century’.

I have been trying to incorporate a few modern songs into the Christmas services.  Someone had made suggestions, and sung snatches of tunes that sounded promising.

But then I found the words, and it’s a boys club all around.

Men everywhere.

Mankind, of course.

he and He, his and His.

horror upon horror.

And the one hymn that — miraculously– spoke of humankind, then went on to talk about the infant Christ as the one born to take our punishment.

I can’t do it.

I don’t think I can do it.

Should I do it?

I very deeply do not believe that we should be singing modern songs written as though nothing good has been learned in the past 100 years.   I do not want to pretend that the language is OK.

But in my desire not to flinch — not to teach others not to flinch — not to pretend that our use of language doesn’t matter — I am asking people to give up songs they love and care about.

Will Spring Harvest ever learn to critique language?  Will Kevin Mayhew ever say ‘no, we won’t publish it like that.  try again’.

… because there are good songs out there, that ‘work’ for worship and carry people’s prayer.

and I wish we could sing some of them.

but I can’t (can I?) when I know that they will get in people’s heads, and sink into their souls, and shape a vision of God that is too small, too angry, too narrow to be true.

You’ve heard me say all this before, but this time it comes with a question.  What should I do?

(and does anyone know of better songs for us to sing, that still meet the desire for ’songs’ not hymns upon occasion?)