Curate`s Musings

Dear friends

When I was seriously ill in my last year of University, one of my lecturers sent me a get well card and a book. The book was Anne of Green Gables and she told me that in dark times regressing to childhood was always a good plan. That started a love affair with all things Avonlea.

One of my December reads (I managed 6 weeks of non-fiction by the way) is going to be “the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” I may even have a CS Lewis fest and read all of the Narnia Chronicles. For those of you who have never read it – four children enter a magical land through a wardrobe. There they find a place that is in the grips of the evil White Witch – a land where it is “always winter and never Christmas.” It is only with the arrival of Father Christmas that you begin to see things are changing and Aslan, the lion, is on the move.

For some people today it is always winter and never Christmas

This Advent and Christmas will be very different. People have been interviewed who seem to suggest that Christmas won`t be happening. Well it will. God will still walk amongst us. The baby will still be born in the stable. Our extraordinary God will become man and live and love amongst us.

Malcolm Guite, the Christian poet, wrote that the true peace and joy of Christmas is a gift, not something we can artificially produce or manufacture. If we have love in our lives then that is such a gift and one that we need to be generous with by extending that love to others.

The Church of England`s theme this year is comfort and joy. There is the prayer that Christmas will bring joy and celebration but there is also the acknowledgment that after such a difficult year with people having lost loved ones and livelihoods and not being able to be with loved ones that we need to provide consolation.

In Romans 12.15 Paul writes “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”

There are so many people who are broken hearted at the moment but we know that Jesus came to bind up the broken hearted and Christmas provides us with a moment of hope.

If you or anyone need prayer or someone to talk to or anything practical please let us know

Christina

Ps if you would like a good advent read “ Unearthly beauty – Through Advent with the Saints” by Magdalen Smith is really readable.