Litany for People Stuck in Waitrose Car Park on the Night Before Christmas Eve

Oh dear God
We just thought we'd slip out for a last-minute almond parfait
and a Basque Cheesecake

and a corn-fed organic free-range Duchy goose

with brandy and chestnut gravy

How happy we were

dreaming of picking up a nice Louis Jadot Chassagne Montrachet Premier Cru for Christmas lunch

with a 20 year old tawny port to sip alongside our Reblochon de Savoie.

But now here we are

Unable to find a place to park

with 7-seater Landrover Discoveries occupying approximately 1.5 spaces each.

You watch over our not going in

and over our not going out 

As the Porche Cayennes roll in off the bypass

so that no-one can move.

But you are the One who made heaven and earth from nothing

Surely it's not beyond you to vaporise a Toyota Corolla estate?

(Although if it's the hybrid you will give more material to the conspiracy theorists, so maybe go for an old Jaguar instead)

But we know in your eyes a thousand ages are but an evening gone

so you probably think we've only just arrived 

and we're not gonna be on your list until about April

So we will dwell in this car park

all the days of our lives

or at least until the Gruyere sells out.

Winter Solstice Ceremony

Archdruid: Like our ancestors before us

Hnaef: And beside us

Charlii: And beneath us

Keith: Tactless.

Archdruid: We stand at the still point of the year. Nature dies.

Charlii: The earth dies screaming.

Keith: The earth dies screaming.

Archdruid: I told you. No UB40.

Hnaef: And yet nature will rise.

Burton: Sunrise, sunset. Sunrise, sunset.

Archdruid: And it's too early for Fiddler on the Roof.

Charlii: Yes, why are we holding this Solstice Ceremony two hours early?

Archdruid: 9am's the only slot I could get from Tesco.

Keith: You've transferred a major festival because of a clash with a grocery delivery?

Archdruid: It's got your Christmas cheese on it.

Charlii: And a traditional Beaker brandy-infused Yule log.

Keith: It's the reason for the season.

The Apple Tree

I went out in the Orchard this afternoon. Where the bare twigs of the apple trees were stark against the steel gray of the solstice sky.

The apple trees were empty. All the leaves gone. And at first you think they're as near dead as a living thing can be.

Except you look slightly more closely, and they're not. Next year's buds are there already. The small leaf buds, of course. But also the chubby flower buds are already there. The tiny signs, in the winter darkness, of the pink and white glories of spring, and the rich, glorious fruit of late summer and autumn.

The promises are all there. 

A child is born. A bud from the branch of Jesse. An offspring of mighty David. Such a tiny thing, in such a dark world. Such a tiny, tiny thing. What is there to see, that angels sing about and Magi worship? What are the hopes of the stepson of a carpenter, the baby of a newly-wed young woman from a conquered race?

Those apple buds will go through the winter cold, to a quick glance dead. This child will go through the death of a cross until he rises in the spring. And now our old world still waits. And the buds of new life wait. And wait, till the Sun of Righteousness will shine and bring new life back into this world.

There's an old hymn that calls Jesus Christ the Apple Tree. He's the one who reverses that old curse of the fruit tree at Eden. The new Adam who faced temptation. The one on whom we feed to receive eternal life.

He came to earth and broke the power of death. He will come again to make all things new.

But for now, he's just a baby in a manger.  We start our story at the beginning. And we will follow him through his life, once again.

Death of Kirsty MacColl (2000)

Imagining Kirsty, halfway through her 60s, writing songs about how the Government have short-changed the Waspi women after saying they'd support them.

She hated injustice and she hated women being betrayed.

And she was thoroughly let down by the system. 

It's pouring with rain, so we won't be dancing the Mambo de la Luna.

Not in these shoes.

And so the Magi Followed the star...

... which led them over the house where the child lay.

And Caspar said to the others,

"Are we sure this isn't actually a secret drone?"

So Balthasar and Melchior went in and offered their gifts and worshipped.

But Caspar spent the next three months on a Reddit, speculating on whether it was Eleazar Musk or the Martians that was behind it.