Post Modern Nativity

Thanks for the Little Pebbles' "Post-modern Nativity". Lovely.

An unusual and creative affair, to be sure. I especially liked the Angel's message to Mary: "Well he may be the Son of God, but what do I know? You'll have to find your own truth."

And the joy that, after Ian Paul, the baby is laid in a manger in the window in a Pets Are Us Nativity display and not in the obvious stable. There being no room, as Matthew tells us, in the kataluma, or mezzanine floor. Presumably because of the in-store vet and grooming parlour occupying that space. I'm not clear how the donkey would have got up the stairs to be groomed before the invention of the lift, but I presume the beasts of burden of the Ancient Middle East were probably more agile than the British variety, which is more at home on beaches.

The shepherds were woken mightily on that hillside as the angels sang their hymn of praise: "Is God, assuming a sentience pertains to what maybe we should the ground of being - or, one might say, the ground of what we believe, truly to be given glory, or  is that in many senses just a metaphor?"

 Which didn't scan as well as the last verse of "While Shepherds Watched" , I'll be honest. Especially sung to "On Ilkley Moor Bah't 'At".  And  the shepherds' flat caps were disconcerting. As were  the whippets o'er which they watched. But still.  It was lovely.

Then the Three Derridan Philosophers rode into town. When asked why they were on plesiosaurs, they replied that they didn't think they were out of context, before going off to  wonder what was meant by the concept of "kingship". 

And King Herod. Really. Turning up to put a  selfie of himself and  the family to put on Instagram? Before personally arranging the building of a wall round Bethlehem and putting all Galilean children in different stables to their parents? I'm not sure if there was some kind of satirical intent in that part of the  script.

Still, lovely. And I'm looking  forward to the lecture tonight: "Why did Stephen Fry make up all that Stuff about Jesus being like Mithras?"

 Lovely.