A couple of weeks ago I took the Tup (Ram) down to Martin’s. I also brought back the last two of his lambs to keep up here, whilst the remainder of his flock enjoy a romp under the autumnal skies. The very same skies, which remind us that winter is approaching along with dark nights, winds, rain, and a pervading air of gloom. That is; if we let it.
For many of us December is a busy exhausting and stressful time, and can make us anxious. Whatever the reason: if we feel that things are getting on top of us and that we do not have enough time, enough money, enough help, or indeed enough of anything you care to mention, we can feel overwhelmed. And so, instead of being able to enjoy Advent as a build-up to Christmas day and the birth of the baby, we dread each day’s arrival and see it as yet another day for us to survive until Christmas is finally over for another year.
I do hope readers do not feel that way, but if they do I will relate something that was said to me by friends who borrow a trailer to take their lambs and pigs to market or slaughter. On the latest occasion when they returned, one of them said, “It was much easier and less stressful for us this time”. This happened because they changed how they did the job. They narrowed the entrance to the trailer and restricted any sideway view which meant that the pigs could easily see that the best option for them-selves was to move towards where they were intended to go. “We thought like a pig” said my friend. Immediately I replied, “Well done, you now sound like a good shepherd or good pig-man.”
I wondered afterwards, could it be that if we started to think like the baby whose birth we celebrate, that a lot of the cares and burdens we carry could be lifted. And could it be that, unlike the pigs who were guided towards the trailer for slaughter, that if we chose to follow the narrow way pointed out to us by the teachings and example of that Christmas baby, we would be led to a richer, fuller life. A life of joy and fulfilment?
Regular readers know that I am grateful, that from my youth my head has been filled with the words and thoughts of those men and women of all races and types, clever people, simple people, saints and sinners. Writers of hymns, poetry and scriptures. All of whom were searching for meaning and purpose in life. One wrote, “Joy to the World, the saviour comes”. Another, “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. …. ‘Have we trials and temptations, is there trouble anywhere, We should never be discouraged, Take it to the Lord in Prayer”. In fact, the baby himself in later life told us as recorded by St John, that we can be self-confident because his spirit would always be with us.
In this column I have previously touched on prayer as during my life of three score years and twenty, I have, at last, learned the value of having a head full of the love given by all those people whose wisdom has given me the confidence to know, who I am and, more importantly, whose I am.
By the time these words are being read we might have a new government-or not. Who can tell? We might be In or Out or, in the words of the Hokey Cokey, ‘dancing all about.’
Christmas however reminds us that there are forces in this world with time scales longer than parliamentary terms, or international treaties. We all know things go around and then come around, and that our own life span encompasses just a few of the cycles. We know empires have risen and empires have fallen, and that ideas can be fads for a few years or can last centuries. What does persist however is the human desire to understand the world and to expand its own capacity and capability.
I think the Christmas baby can help us to do both.
Finally, as with all previous December articles, I invite readers to join me on Christmas Morning in Church or Chapel to sing. Adeste Fidelis. “Oh come all ye faithful”.
The invitation is also for those who, in all honesty, do not consider themselves capable of singing words in which they do not believe. Remember. Belief is what is in, or not in, one’s own mind, it is personal. But also remember that being so; one way or the other:
Does not make it, ‘all there is to know.’
View from the Pew 