Christmas Wishes

The other week we went walking in the grounds of a beautiful abbey. Well I say "WE", my husband and children went walking, me and my bad knee had hot chocolate in the cafe. After they had come back from searching high and low for the clues in the Advent trail. They joined me for a drink.  Each of them had been given a little tag. On this tag they were expected to write their wish and tie it to the wish tree.  Ours duly made their wishes, and we tied on them on the tree. Hidden among the plentiful wishes for toys and snow, were wishes for things that moved me to tears. Wishes that were not superficial, wishes that deserved to be granted. Wishes for fathers, brothers, sisters to come back. Wishes for people to get better. These children bypassing the the mass media hype for possessions, have a far more genuine need to wish for this Christmas.

At Christmas you are bombarded with images of happiness, joy and perfect families. It is easy to get caught up and forget that many people need and want only "hope".  Hope that life we will be better, families mended, that sickness will be cured, that relatives are safe in heaven and of somewhere safe and warm to sleep and eat.  Many more still mask their internal pain and struggles behind their false smiles of "joy", praying that someone might notice their conflict and help.

Walking many miles to a town they barely knew there was a couple and a donkey. The lady heavily pregnant. They walked the path in the hope of compassion, food and lodgings. All alone, this young couple had no idea if their prayers would be answered. They knocked in hope and were turned away. They did not give in, they persisted in knocking until someone answered. It was not much this person gave them that night but it was enough.

How many people will be knocking on the doors around us this Christmas and will we notice them, will we answer them?

Christmas is about joy, happiness and rejoicing. This young couple were overjoyed with the gift they had that night. The gift of a small baby boy that gave again with the gift of a family. This wonderful icon of Christian life given to us that night, gave more than joy. It gave us hope.

This little tiny boy who lights up the darkest of lives, gave us hope. Hope for a future, no matter how we despair or suffer. This Christmas I wish for hope. Hoping I might be a better person, that I may be the inn that opens it's door and says "YES". Hoping that I might touch the lives of others in a positive way. Hoping that I find a stronger faith in the gift that is given this year. Hope that I will not forget to remember among all the happiness that others suffer.

We should open our hearts to hopeful happiness when we receive Christ on Thursday morning. That we start with welcoming this infant child and grow with him throughout this year.

To all of you who read this blog, may you have a very Happy Christmas, may your day be filled with blessings.

A little unexpected

Earlier in the week my attention was drawn back to Our Blessed Mother as we celebrated the Immaculate Conception. This is the first year when my youngest understood what we were celebrating at any level, and I was faced with a superfluous flow of questions. All of which I deflected in the hope that the sermon would answer them for me, fortunately this was the case.

All though this is an important celebration and there is lots to be said, it is not the Immaculate Conception that has been holding my thoughts all week. It is a combination of this and this video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W2UrAoh76o ) that has got me thinking. Christmas starts with a little baby. This little baby was not expected, planned or convenient, yet here he was not just a life on miraculous human scale but a divine miracle too.

As much then as now, unplanned children were a challenge, more so when out of wedlock. It is a daunting thought when you discover you are to be a Mother. You have a life growing inside of you, even more of a shock when the timing is not great. A whole ream of thoughts go through your head, am I good enough, can I do this even when others think I can't, can I provide, can I love.  Despite all of these challenges and questions, God has chosen you for this life. To grow it and nurture it, he maybe understands more of you, than you do.  It is a lot easier now to decide the time is not right for you, than it was back then. In the loneliness of making a choice that affects not just her, but her husband to be Mary said "I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to your word."

I have been through three pregnancies, each time I have had doubts as to whether now is right. However, one thing I have always been sure of is that little life is a miracle, A miracle that will challenge, frustrate and  fatigue me, but will also bring me so many blessings too.

Life has it's curve balls, it has a habit of stopping us in our tracks with inconvenient little miracles. It might be hard to take on the challenges God throws in our footpaths sometimes, but I guarantee that not only will he guide you and hold you through them, he will reward you with many blessings. Christ came to us in so many unexpected ways and  grew up to be crowned a humble King of peace. He came not with the power and planning we value so much, but came to challenge that. Faith is a challenge, it is not planned but it is the greatest gift you will get this Christmas. It is love, hope, grace and life everlasting.

The waiting game.

Here we are roughly half way through advent. We are waiting for the coming new life that brings God down to earth to live among us. Our blessed mother seems to take this wait much more graciously than me. I am impatient and by the time I was as pregnant as her, I was chewing at the bit. I wanted to meet this exciting new life I had created. Ahead of the arrival my growing new life was the adventurous unknown, being a beached whale not so much.

Here we are on the cusp of a new life, exciting and unknown. We might know the story of by heart, we might think we know what is coming. However as we wait, reflect and listen each year to the coming Christ child we are different. A whole new years worth of life and experience that affects how we listen and respond to the coming new life. When I was a child I was eager for the arrival of Christ, for the advent calender to end, for the feast to come and ultimately the presents to be opened (one year I even managed a 2am stocking opening after going to midnight Mass). Patience really never has been my strong point. However I have got better at it. While the child deep inside me is still desperate to celebrate, decorate and feast, the adult in me wants the time to go a little slower. I know that the expanse of waiting gives us time to prepare for the coming, for it is never as we expect it. 

We expect the story, the food, the family, the tree and the presents. We now expect God to arrive as a vulnerable child. What we do not expect and sometimes do not even listen to is how this vulnerable child arrives in our lives this Christmas. We need to prepare not just our houses, but our hearts. This time is a blessing, because receiving new life into your life is not always easy. Those of us that have had children know that as amazing and miraculous as this baby in our arms is, it is hard work over the rest of our lifetime to nurture that life. Christ comes to us as a new life, a small child. His arrival in our lives and hearts, is not just that instantaneous moment of joy, it is that hard slog of commitment and work for the rest of our lives. 

There is much vulnerability in the lives around us. There is pain, fear, depression, poverty and wars. How we prepare and listen this advent, effects how we respond to these and how we see Christ in our lives. The Christ child came to give us the most miraculous of gifts and all gifts are best shared. Now in this time, prepare to listen, prepare to respond and be prepared to share the rest of your life with Christ. 

Lightening bolts on Black Friday

There are events in our lives that change us forever. Small moments, that mean we can not go back or even step sideways, we have to go with the flow. They are often events that are unplanned and strike us much like a bolt of lightening. We are left stunned for a moment, then we move into acceptance.
We find the people we will spend our lives with, we will give life to a new human being, we will find something new to do with our lives. Seconds or minutes of our lives that give us a blessing we are thankful for for the rest of our lives. They are not possessions and they can not be bought, yet they have more value than anything you can buy.

Today we have seen stories of fighting for Black Friday deals. People brought down to animal levels to save a few pounds off of a possession.  What makes us willing to scrap over a tv, a computer and toys and yet give up so easily when it comes to fighting for what is right. There is nothing right about fighting another human being for a possession, when there are people who are starving, when people live in fear and can not go home.

Somewhere along the line we decided that owning lots of possessions was what made us someone. We turned ourselves into our computers and stopped talking. We started to believe that self was more important than community.

When Jesus came, he did not come to one but to all. All who wanted to stop and listen. Maybe we should stop and listen. Listen to the disaster that is coming because we can not see beyond ourselves and our needs. Lightening strikes, it changes lives. Maybe we can be a lightening strike in someone's life and make a difference.

On finding the reason not to hide beneath the duvet.

When you know that the minute you even so much as twitch your leg, you will experience pain, lying still under the duvet becomes so much more than "I don't want to get out of bed". I am not particularly good at bearing the burden of pain. All I can say is I have a great admiration for those who suffer pain daily, with no chance of it ever stopping. The pain I am experiencing will be (hopefully and thankfully) temporary. Nevertheless in me, it does rather bring out the temptation to hide and withdraw.
It has made me reflect first of all on the suffering of Christ. When beaten, tortured and tormented, he did not go and curl up in the corner and give in. He stood in defiance of the suffering and carried on until it killed him. So, therefore throughout history and into the present day we see references to those who will suffer pain, torture and even death rather than relent their faith. Day to day there are many who endure pain not just in one place but throughout their bodies, often smiling and embracing the world. I wish I knew their secret. I can take most things and smile easily, but pain seems to take an extra effort and an awful lot of prayer. I am apt to feel sorry for myself and as ashamed as I am to admit more than just a little willing to hide beneath that duvet.
Yet, when one chides oneself out from the beneath the duvet the suffering often has it's rewards. I have tried my best not to retreat, complain or withdraw. God's grace is an amazing thing and I am glad that I have made the effort to receive it over the weekend.
God's grace helps us to carry the most extraordinary of challenges. As humans we are fragile and weak, but when we open our hearts to God's grace we become capable of so much more. Alone we can torture ourselves without anyone else helping it along. We give up on fights and struggles and retreat. When we open our hearts to God he gives us the strength to go the extra mile. He can calm our private tortures, forgive us our many wrongs and restore us to wholeness to carry on. He gives us a grace that eases our burdens and gives us the capability to love others and ease theirs too. His grace is free and over flowing. He gives us enough for ourselves and enough for us to share, so that others might see his love through us. We should respect the gift of grace we are given, we should always be ready to receive it. Always be ready to listen and learn. Most importantly of all we should be willing to show others the way to God's grace. Like the wine vessels at the Wedding in Cana, there is more than enough for everybody. Let us show others God's love not in spite of our suffering, but because we have suffered  we understand the value of God's grace and love all the more.

Frozen by fear

Over the Summer it was deemed necessary to buy a now exceptionally popular Christmas film for my birthday. This was entirely so I could have a treat you understand. The film was, of course, Frozen. Now before you run away and hide in the corner of insanity as "let it go" takes lodge in your head and will not leave. I want to look at the theme of the film, fear. Elsa, desperate to love and reach out, is paralysed and changed by fear. Fear does strange things to us all. It can turn us into irrational beings and in some extreme cases like Elsa it makes us dangerous.

Small fears, paralyse our minds, our bodies and cause us to behave in ways we would not normally do. For instance one teeny spider on the other side of the room catching me by surprise, will make me jump (scream) and run away. I will not then return until said arachnid has been removed. This is daft and irrational, I know it is. I am prepared to have other insects and animals around me, even dangerous ones. Yet this small and defenceless creature, sends me quaking.

More medium fears change who we are. For those who know me well, I am a chatty and out going person. For those meeting me for the first time, you would be lucky to drag a word out of me and you will have to work at starting the conversation. Afraid of slipping up, not knowing what you think and who you are, I would sooner say nothing and avoid people at all costs. It takes a while for me to trust people and even longer for me to trust that a plane will not just fall out of the sky while I am in it.

More extreme fears are more often based in a small bit of reality, but taken out of all proportion. When we fear for our families, our countries and our faiths. When we fear where our next meal comes from or when we will be loved. We change completely. We shut down rational thought, we do not stop long enough to think. We use fight or flight. For those that use fight, the consequences can be catastrophic. There are many evil events in our world right now, how many of them are driven by the constant pressure of fear. Living in constant extreme fear, can do much to permanently alter the psychological reactions of a person. Like Elsa, one tiny mistake not done out of evil but fear. Can change us and drive us to do things we would never dream of doing before.One small act, then meditated on and feared can quickly escalate our actions. Then we can hurt and destroy. You can see it all around us. Fear has a lot to answer for.

Fear has an answer though, as Elsa found. Time, patience and love, build a trust. Step by very slow step as trust builds we begin to let go of our paralysis and then we can truly begin to move on. Facing fears takes a lot of courage and this is why you need someone to demonstrate love to break to bonds of fear that hold you still. For the small fears and even the slightly bigger ones, this is easier. Someone to take your hand, to hold it as you tremble while they show you it is is safe. For entire countries so radicalised by fear, their psyche of their entire cultures so changed by constant barrages of threat. It is much harder to gain trust, to show love and to learn patience.

All of us fear something, all of us need someone to help us through. For us, this Sunday marked Holy Cross Sunday. It is where we look at the symbol of Christ's cross in our lives. The night before he was crucified, in the darkness Christ himself felt this most human of feelings. He feared what he had to do, he struggled to trust in his Father. But he did trust him, he faced his fear and in doing so he broke the bonds of fear for us all. We no longer need to fear, for trust in the Lord, means love from the Lord, means forgiveness and victory over death. We may not see that which loves us most. We may not feel that which carries us through our darkest times. We do however see him reflected in our friends and families. In the stranger that changes your life in some small way. Beyond that, when we look back through our lives, we can see the footprints he has left on our journey. We can see how our trust in him pays off. Christ died that we may have victory over death, that there might be nothing we should fear. For when we stand before God trusting him in humble penitence for all our wrongs, we do not need to fear for his love transcends all.

We just need to learn to stop, take a deep breath, and place our fear at the foot of the cross. For there is no greater forgiveness than his and there is no greater love in which you can place your trust

When did death and divorce become a game?

On a day when we mark the deaths of so many who died that we be free, I am slightly baffled by my children's attitude to death. Not just death either but suicide, divorce and care homes. At the ages of 9 and 6, I am fairly sure I had not even heard of suicide or care homes, yet all of the above are so normal to my children they form part of their role play games with alarming frequency.

I am not going to attack single parents, they are not to blame. I myself was the only child to s single parent for 7 years, until my Mother remarried. It is part of the reason I know it is no game. I know that suicide, care homes and death are not games too. I have been touched by them and the reality of what they mean. Not all of them personally, but certainly I have witnessed friends close to me go through the pain they involve. Yet to my children, these things are normal and something to joke about. I used to believe CBBC was a good thing. It had no adverts and I considered it to deal with issues and educate children. Then I encountered Tracy Beaker and the Dumping ground. It is a follow on from an emerging trend of author's such as Judy Blume when I was younger. They start to deal with the reality of teenage life and struggles there in. Judy Blume did it well, it was portrayed in a much more realistic way and was aimed at a higher age group. Though it has to be said my interests lay in other areas, primarily at the time Gerald Durrell and the Bronte sisters and therefore these books only made a passing impact on my life and identity. However Jacquline Wilson's books have made it into tv adaptations on CBBC. Now, they do deal with important issues and I think this is necessary. The trouble is CBBC viewers are not limited to late primary school and teenage children. It's viewers range official from 7/8 upwards and in reality if they have siblings they start watching it from younger if you only have one television in the house. Now we only have an hours tv watching a day in this house, when I am preparing dinner. On a Saturday and in holidays first thing in the morning. Yet encountering these tv programmes on such a brief time span has still effected the way they see the world, to the extent that we have banned the watching of some of them. It is not that I disagree with them attempting to deal with these problems, it is that they do not just normalise them but make them seem fun. The introduction of cartoon images in between scenes means that through the eyes of a younger child they must be fun and therefore become a game. Before you even know it your child is marrying, divorcing, and sending children to care homes several times in a morning. Yes role play helps children to deal with the world around them. But when such ideas become entrenched and acceptable when they are so young, it is not hard to see why they become easy to do when you are older.

We are a Christian country, we are supposed to believe in a Christian morality. We are supposed to promote the ideas that a stable family is the best way forward. We are meant to demonstrate the sanctity of life, so as that when we come to mark days of remembrance and Christ's crucifixion, the enormity of the sacrifice makes an impact on the children. So as that they can understand it's value, pass it on to the next generation. Such an understanding is required to stop such atrocities ever happening again. If it all becomes normal, even in games at the age of 6, what hope have we for preserving the sanctity of life and family models.

I know many issues in society frighten children and we need to talk to and deal with them with our children. But when they seem so much fun on television, you are not dealing with it. You are going to bring a whole generation of children down with a bump when they realise that what they had thought of as a bit of cartoon fun, actually is far more serious and is full of pain. They will find that death is permanent and people do not come back when you switch the telly on for repeats. That divorce tares families apart. That the many and varied reasons why a child ends up in a care home are anything but glossy and fun. If we want to deal with the issues, we should deal with them a)in guaranteed age range that understand what is trying to be dealt with and b)in a realistic manner, that does not frighten but does ultimately portray what really does happen.

Whilst these things are normal and do happen, they are not meant to be the ideal. If we make them seem more fun than the alternatives, it is no surprise that the next generation will part from their lives and families with such ease. It will not just become a disposable consumer society, but our families and maybe even our lives will become disposable with much more ease. I do not think that all those men went to war and sacrificed their lives, so that we could dispose of ours quite that freely.