The Logic of Creation

Some of our more recent readers may not be aware of the fuss that Hnaef caused a while back, when he came "out", as I believe the expression is, as a member of the Church of England. This caused us to see him in a new light, especially when I realised that the "Daily Office" he was reading was in fact Morning Prayer, and not a newspaper for the business community.


And a verse he quoted to us this morning pulled me up short. It's from Colossians 1: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created..."
All a bit John 1, of course. But the thing that struck me was the contradiction between "the firstborn of all creation" which could be taken by some as implying Christ was created, and "in him all things in heaven and on earth were created" - which implies he certainly wasn't. 


But it seems to me that "first-born" isn't "first-made". The Egyptian and Roman gods produced new gods by - ahem - the way that rabbits produce rabbits, meerkats produce new meerkats and even, let's say it - even humans new humans. By which means the divinity wasn't lost, and the new generation were gods just as the previous ones were.


And maybe that's what Paul's trying to get at, it strikes me. Christ is "first-born" because he's got all the same god-ness as the Father. Of course, there's no Mrs God about the place (if there is, the Bible's  very quiet about it, although I know that Francesca Stavrakopoulou would say that powerful vested interests edited the text to get her to go away, and provide Dr Stavrakopoulou with the chance to make hard-hitting TV series and the Daily Mail the chance to get hot 'n' bothered about it).


But God doesn't need that Mrs God because (a) as far as we know, God doesn't do that sort of thing and (b) if anyone is Mrs God, then it's God Godself, as God has neither X nor Y chromosomes (and no mucky comments) and (c) the point Paul's trying to  make here is one of relationship rather than sex and the single deity. Paul's saying that Christ is not made - he's "born". And if he's firstborn of creation then he's there first - in the sense of really first, not merely waiting ever since a date I shall call "minus eternity"' and then just nipping in first before all the rest - but first-first.


But if first-born of all creation, and the one through whom it was all made, then when he was, if you will excuse the expression, born again - a second, physical birth, in a piece of rock orbiting a medium-sized star at the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy, as a sage once put it - then in a way, he was there already. He was coming back to his own. Because he was there in the beginning and all along - not as some spaceman came travelling, an alien in an alien place, but as one who knew every nook and cranny in that stable, every strand of DNA in the governor who was to condemn him, the full life-cycle of the tree that made his manger, and the tree that bore his body. That doesn't mean that Jesus the man knew all these things - as his brain was the same size as ours, give or take - but it does mean that Christ underpins the whole shooting-match in the first place.


It means the Son is the Logos, as John puts it - the Word through whom all creation was spoke, but also the logic that holds the whole universe together - the one who defines the fine-structure constant, Planck's constant, the speed of light in a vacuum and, for all I know, the numbers π and e (I'm not too sure about these last two - I can imagine a world where c is different, but I don't know if I can imagine one where π is).

All of which leaves me wondering - if that's true then has an assumed truth of the last western Christian century been upside down? We've got into a habit of thinking (which I'm not going to bother referencing as (a) I don't know where to find this and (b) I hope you'll recognise this) that people - of all faiths and none - have an appreciation of the Spirit, but not one of Christ. We beloieve that it is Christ that people are lacking, but because everybody is spirit-ual they all possess, to one degree or another, the Spirit. But if the first-born of creation is the one who defines the logic of the universe, then in fact it's the other way round. The Logos who sets our very physical parameters is the One whom we all - implicitly - understand. Of course, it's a bit of a shock when the Logos decides to reside on earth as a small Jewish boy-child, born to what we might call an unconventional family. But the shock is that one who was here all along, is here embodied and en-souled.

Maybe the spirituality we see in others - even non-Christians, even non-believers - the belief that "there must be something", the innate nagging that sees purpose - comes from the Logos, the one who innately fills the world with meaning and reason, not the Spirit. The Spirit meanwhile is the one who blows where she wills, the one who, while we've been presenting our logi-cal cases for faith, has been howling down the outside of the church building wondering when she's going to be let in.

I'm not sure what all this means, if anything. But it made me think. I think I'd better open the window. You never know what might blow in.

The Lull After Christmas

In the Beaker Community, we tend to have a bit of a lull after the Big Three days of Christmas.

It's a strange time, these third-through-sixth days of Christmas. We have neither Solstice festival nor Christmas carol-singing to look forward to. And we're all trying to regain our strength before New Year's Eve.  And for those of a more "traditional" (ie invented) bent, it's ages till Imbolc.

A few  among our community go back to work. When these are single and/or childless couples - or when they have to go back because they're bin collectors or nurses or those who must keep the workplace  covered - we understand. When I hear the words "it's nice and quiet and I can get some work done" from married men with small children, I normally dust off the "Ritual of Acrimonious Divorce". It's always good to be ready and know where to find it.

Marston Moretaine is whatever the opposite of a Puritan is, when it comes to Christmas. He's spending his day down at the landfill - sorry, Recycling Centre, and shouting at anyone dumping a Christmas tree that they're a week early.

In order to give everyone a rest after all the festive sleep-deprivation, I've invented the concept of "official sunrise" as the time to Pour Out Beakers. This will be 11am for the rest of this week, moving to 1pm on New Year's Day. It makes some of the liturgical words about "Dawn chorus" and "rumble of the early-morning commuters on the M1" a bit strange, but probably no more anachronistic than an evangelist trying to use the word "sin" to an unchurched teenager.

And now I really must go and supervise the annual Clearing out of the Garage. There's a lot of stuff to shift, and a rumour that, somewhere in the back, the Lost Tribes of Israel can be found.

The Worst Xmas Song?

Just about to nip out for the Grand Wassail but unexpectedly hearing Cyndi Lauper's Early Christmas Morning on the Community Muzak makes me wonder if this the worst Christmas song ever. I reckon if it's not, at the least Spaceman Came Travelling has a close competitor. FWIW I'd put Fairytale of New York as the best (I sense you all step back in amazement) and, controversially perhaps, maybe Frankie's Power of Love a distant second.

I think Cyndi's effort has all the classic hallmarks of a Bad Christmas Record. Simplistic tune, pointless bells, mention of children dancing (not the little children of Stonehenge, sadly) and pointless and annoying whooping. Some doggerel so bad it nearly shades into gibberish - and then it ends with this little gem:

All around and far off places
Angels waken smiling faces
Wrapping us with love and graces
Early christmas morning

Complaints Flood In

I've been receiving a number of complaints about Thomas Leaf's behaviour on Christmas Night. I blame myself really. After all, we'd explained to him how important it is that we celebrate tradition. Unfortunately, in direct contrast to all the other Beaker People, he chose to follow his own tradition rather than somebody else's. In 19th Century Dorset, his behaviour would have been regarded as a traditional and rather charming Christmas activity, probably entitling him to a few bob. These days it's just called wandering around  the village with a jug of cider, singing loudly outside people's windows. And at 2 in the morning, that's not allowed. The children of some of the families he woke up were convinced that Santa had arrived, so there were some bad nights all round.

Christmas Morning

OK Santa, you can get back in your sleigh now. The holiday ads can start, the sales get into full swing and people will start forgetting to light the bling.

Meanwhile, the few people that "do" will continue to remember the unexpected invasion of this world by its creator. The blingfest was nice while it lasted, but it's good to have Christmas.

We kicked off the "Christmassy" theme with a bit of a sing-song round the tree last night. Unfortunately Jerbil started hyperventilating during "Angels from the Realms of Glory", so we thought it would be better not to bother with "Ding-dong merrily on high". Best not to risk it. And a couple of women were arrested for singing descants without a licence. Which was a mercy all round.

And then I had a couple of glasses of Hnaef's traditional Beaker punch. And I've just woken in my study, dressed as Queen Boudicca and with a traffic cone on the end of the spear. Next year I really must take Daphne's advice regarding Hnaef's punch.

Smelly, Hairy and Covered in Hay

It's the scene every expectant mum looks forward to. The baby - all screwed up like a raisin, sure, but definitely adorable. The husband standing by, awe-struck by the miracle that has happened so many times since a mutant duck-billed platypus or echidna unexpectedly gave up laying eggs. The mother - flushed, exhausted, knowing that the chances are she's made it through probably the most dangerous few hours of her life. From now on in, the risks are going to be on the baby's side, at least for a few years. But for now it's quiet, things are calm, everyone's safe. The surroundings are a bit unusual, sure, but that's to be expected in the circumstances. Everything's as normal as can be.

Except for the shepherds. What every scene of domestic harmony needs, is a bunch of shepherds. Men who spend their lives surrounded by some of the dimmest mammals on the planet. Men who are smelly, hairy, and covered in hay. That's a fine collection of visitors with which to surround your new-born son. And if you're also under the illusion that there's something particularly special about this child, it's even odder.

Why the shepherds first? Why not those nice clean Magi, with their funny gifts? Why not the Bethlehem townswomen's guild, who might have turned up and presented doilies, tea-cosies and oven gloves? Assuming that's what townswomen's guilds do - for all I know they're into abseiling and extreme yo-yo. Why not the Bethlehem Mayor or the local Rabbi? Why some sweaty blokes who smell of sheep?

But then why any of it? Why the birth under an army of occupation? Why the life growing up under governors, tetrarchs, dictators, puppet kings? Why the harassment from the soldiers? Why the mess and the squalor? Why the constant journeying, the struggle, the desertions, the opposition? Why the fingers pointing and the accusation? Why the betrayal, the torture, the death?

Better make the most of the shepherds, Baby Jesus. It may seem unlikely, and you've come a long way down already, but it's all downhill from here.

After the Yule is Over

At around the same time I was commenting on Tim Minchin, the Thirsty Gargoyle had a few words to say on the matter. The Gargoyle's post mostly focusses on the way Minchin complains about being dropped from the Ross show, and effectively takes a pragmatic capitalist view to it - ITV being a commercial channel the last thing they want to do is offend all those well-educated, affluent, middle-class Christian consumers. Tim Minchin is wingin', in effect. I personally feel that the problem with the song is that, possibly as a result of being written to order, it was a bit stretched. The Woody Allen idea was quite sweet, the idea that Tim Minchin himself was Jesus (beard and long hair, you see) was mildly funny, if kind-of-heretical - after all, the point of the Incarnation is that Jesus took on the nature of all of us, not just of Tim Minchin.  While the other stuff was pointless trying-to-be-funny/shocking.

But I would also recommend you to read Thrsty Gargoyle's response to a troll who tries to claim in the comments that Christians stole Christmas by simply renaming it. It is one of the most witty responses to a troll I have read in a long time, and a neat but of debunking.

It's pretty clear that Christmas wasn't "stolen", "renamed" or "co-opted" from anything. Pretty well any time of the year that Christmas was going to be celebrated, it would coincide with some non-Christian festival or another. After all, religions have festivals all the time and there are lots of festivals.

But.

As I have noted in this journal before, there is one culture that does seem to have celebrated the Winter Solstice, and these were the culture that built one of the phases of Stonehenge - orienting that venerable temple onto the axis of the summer sunrise and the winter sunset. They have left no writing, and we do not have their language or the name they called themselves. So we call them Beaker Folk after their pottery. And we of the Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley, not having the original word for the winter solstice, have chosen to use the word "Yule", because we may as well. Can we not imagine - as Stukeley might if he had not erroneously thought Stonehenge to be Celtic - can we not imagine that when the last light of the winter sun had sunk behind the Wessex horizon, sinking away to where the ancestors lived out their shrivelled, attenuated half-life existences (Somerset), that the ancient Beaker People may well have celebrated the promises of longer days ahead by lighting tea lights and drinking a mixed drink with a strong hint of vanilla?

Well, that's what we plan to do. Freed from the constraints under which other Christians (or at least the ones with liturgical responsibilities) have to keep themselves sober for Midnight Mass, and then risk sleep deprivation by getting up for the Mass of the Dawn, we can kick off our Crocs and Uggs, relax, and drink deeply of Hnaef's traditional Beaker Punch. A happy Christmas to all our pilgrims from around the world, and may all your hi-vizes be white.

Getting Ready for the Authentic Nativity

Now this was all Hanef's idea. I don't want to pre-judge, so I'll save saying "Hnaef's fault" for later after the children have performed it.

In our Authetic Nativity you get the story of the First Christmas, as it really happened. Or, at least, as it really happened according to some smug historo-critical scholars whom everybody ignores the rest of the year while they're working out the author of the second-half of verse 27 of the fourth chapter of 1 Samuel and deducing that, on the basis of the word order, the subject matter and their own-presuppositions, he was probably called Deutoronomy of Gath. Or some church leaders who hope that, if they shatter the illusion, people will remember that they exist.

No, in our Authentic Christmas, Mary discovers that, because of the mis-translation of a word in Isaiah, she's going to have a baby. Her betrothed, Joseph, initially arranges to have her stoned but later changes his mind for no apparent reason. When the call to attend a Census arrives Joseph is confused by the lack of any coherent chronology and decides to stay where he is. Which means, confusingly, that there is some room in the cellar of a bunk-house in Bethlehem, because the shepherd who normally sleeps in a pile of hay in an appropriated feeding-trough is at work, and nobody else needs it. The shepherd himself is on the hills abiding with his mates, but has no need to rush back into town due to the total non-appearance of a group of supernatural beings imported from Babylonian mythology. So he just sits there. Watching sheep.

Two years later, some astrologers turn up in Jerusalem looking for a king. The king's advisers tell them that, due to another dating error, Herod's already dead. And they won't be joining the shepherds around the manger as a shepherd's asleep in it after a long year's abiding. Furthermore, the advisers point out, the astrologers themselves are simply invented to create a spurious fulfilment of a prophecy about the Riches of the East coming to Israel. At which point of of the astrologers - nobody knows which of the seven it was - thumps an official and says "nobody calls me a spurious fulfilment". Having caused a diplomatic incident they mount their camels, before remembering they don't have any camels and they'll have to walk home.

Mary and Joseph bring Jesus up in Nazareth. They get increasingly worried about his messianic complex, and his odd belief that he is actually from Judea. They often wish they could take him on holiday - maybe to Egypt - but can never afford it.

As I say, I'm told it's "authentic" but it's not a very good Nativity. To be honest, I'm not totally sure I believe it happened like that at all.  Happy Christmas.

The season to be jolly?

I've just sat through the film Nativity! with the Hnaefs. The glum bloke from The Office gets back together with the Scottish woman from Ugly Betty while gap-toothed cherubs sing "street" Christmas songs and the posh kids are shown up. I'll be honest, I was already feeling a little queasy after two early mornings on the trot, and now I feel positively nauseous. Still, the little Hnaefs seemed to be all right about it, despite Hnaef insisting that Mary proves that women can stand alone and defiant in the face of an oppressive patriarchal society.

And I've heard three more examples of people using Fairytale of New York as a festive backing to their TV programmes and adverts. And I've had enough of it. And at some point I'm going to have to move fast before I get the self-satisfied, grinning, patronising, ain't-I-great face of Jonathan Ross all over my TV screen. And as if it's not bad enough that on Christmas Day we get The Snowman, I've heard today that they're making a sequel.

Well I've had enough. The Nativity is about a young, scared girl unexpectedly bringing the king of the universe into the mess of human existence. You can believe what you like about the Census, but it's undeniable that the birth was under the shadow of one of the most brutal, hateful empires the world ever saw.  That baby whose birth we so sweetly carol had 33 short years on this planet before he was brutally put to death by his fascist oppressors and their bloated, vicious puppets. The Fairytale of New York is about a drunk man dying, and remembering his junkie girlfriend. And 10 million turkeys have to die so we can all smother their meat in redcurrant jelly, because the meat's too dry to eat.

Christmas? Or, at least, the jolly, all-friends-together, everyone's got to be happy, New Scrooge on the Block Christmas where you all act like it's the end of the Christmas episode of Little House on the Prairie? You can keep it.

I'll just have the one glass of Hnaef's special Christmas Punch, then I think I'll be off to bed. I've had enough Christmas and it's not even Christmas yet.

The Pagan Origins of Christmas Cards

I'm grateful to Phil Ritchie for informing me yesterday of this page discussing the dating of Christmas. The author refers to the way in which uber-Protestants, out of a desire to diss the Catholics, made up a load of religious history. This first proposed the idea that the Christians stole the date from other Roman festivals: including the feast of Sol Invictus and, as proposed with little evidence but much gravitas by Stephen Fry on QI, Mithras's birthday.

But of course this debunking only applies to the "Roman origin" myth of the Christmas date, and the author of the article does stress that there's no reason to think that Jesus's birthday actually was 25 December. As Stephen Fry might more accurately aver, "Nobody knows".

But of course that is to ignore the "elephant in the room". For in this theory, Christmas is so-dated because it is 9 months after the feast of the Annunciation. Which is so-dated to coincide with the traditional dating of the First Good Friday. Which is so-dated because it coincides with Passover. Which is so-dated because it is just after the Vernal Equinox. So we have the conclusion that Christmas has the date it has, not because of the Winter Solstice, but because of the Vernal Equinox combined with the human gestation period. Which is, when you think about it, even odder. And I have uncovered further evidence....

The picture goes all wobbly as we cut back 2,000 years. A man who, to judge by his appearance may well be Arimathean, stands atop Glastonbury Tor with the last of the Ancient Race of Beaker Druids. They are watching the sun set on the shortest day, and watching a few hapless Beaker People trying to keep their tea lights alight in the wind.

Archdruid Enya: So, Joe - this Jesus. When's his birthday?

Joseph of Arimathea: You what?

AE: His birthday? He is your God, right? So you must celebrate his birthday?

J of A: No idea. No, we celebrate his rising from death to life every Sunday...

AE: What, every week? Can't you have a special celebration once a year, and then just drag yourself to church every other Sunday because you feel you have to?

J of A: Smart thinking. OK if I take notes?

AE: No worries. Though I won't be able to proof-read them for you as we've not invented writing yet.

J of A: Personally I'm just waiting for the Greeks to invent cursive script. These majuscule uncials are giving my wrist right gyp.

AE: So now you just need to sort out his birthday. You seriously telling me you don't know when he was born?

J of A: According to my mate Luke, it was just about the time of the census decreed for the whole Roman Empire by Caesar Augustus, when Quirinius was the governor of Syria...

AE: Well, that's a whole dating problem of its own. You're never going to nail it down from that, are you? Tell you what, why don't you make it up?

J of A: So when do you suggest?

AE: How about celebrating his birthday at Christmas?

J of A: What, this feast you're celebrating because it's the shortest day?

AE: That's right. I mean, obviously enough already with the blood sacrifice and wicker people - you don't want to go associating them with the story of a baby. But let's face it, Christmas is perfect for what you want - everybody's already got the day off. And we've even got the perfect greeting for it. "Merry Christmas!"

J of A: That will work! Because we should be merry, shouldn't we! Tell you what, to remind myself I'm going to write your suggestion on this bit of papyrus I brought with me. The one where I drew a robin on the other side when I was studying your British wildlife.

AE: Good idea. So that will be "Merry Christmas".

J of A: And I'll add "from Archdruid Enya", so I remember who suggested it. Thanks, Enya.

AE: No worries. And now I've got to get off and sacrifice a couple of prisoners.  You interested? No? OK, fair enough - maybe not for everyone. Wouldn't want to impose my beliefs...

Christmas Service Stats - Unveiled

Dear Readers, every year the mainstream churches announce their Christmas service attendance. Now as you know I am no cynic. Buy my suspicion is that they are hiding a lot of the detail that people want to know.

So after much crunching of numbers from various groups over many years, I am glad to let you have this first glimpse of my research.

Too early to look a lot like Christmas

We're in that period before Advent. A time of waiting for the time of waiting. A time of expectation, of longing, of hope and yet trepidation.

We're not necessarily in that time when I would have expected this evening's tea lights to be housed in Father Christmas light holders. Nor for the mulled-wine scented candles to have been broken out so early. Nor "Walking in the Air"and "A Spaceman Came Travelling" to be piped out of the Community speakers instead of Enya.

If your Christmas starts in November then it can only celebrate the fat man with the red coat. Now there's nothing wrong with Santa, whatever Drayton Parslow may think. But a celebration of Christmas that starts early and focusses on getting what you want, now, is going to peak on December 25. By the 27th the Santa decorations are looking a bit tired and pointless, the stockings around the chimney purposeless. And I want Yule to last till Twelfth Night. You can call me old-fashioned if you like.

So can we please put the Santa light holders back into the Worship Room until a more suitable time. And the Christmas themed fleeces that have broken out in the Rainbow Room. And the penguins can go back into cold storage, too. I've haddock up to here with them.

Poetry out of Season

Rachel and Phil ask whither - or possibly wither - the poet-priest. Well, if archdruids are allowed, and if I can be forgiven this "Another chance to see" moment, I would be very glad to proffer this tribute to Johnny B.

The cash-tills in the Arndale ring
We’re putting up the tatty bling
Our glowing icicles of white
Have blown away the last of night
In suburbs, hamlets, village greens
And towns from Slough to Milton Keynes.

The reindeers glowing on the lawn
And round the bungalow the strings
of fairy lights in many colours
and many flashing, tasteless things
mean that the passers-by can say
“That’s rather naff” on Christmas day.

The Coca-Cola lorries blaze
and Marks and Spencers' pockets fill.
The Go-Go Hamsters safely graze
while Simon Cowell's puppets still
can dream of having festive fun
when they’re the Christmas number one.

And up the airport Christmas Eve
They’re flying from the winter rain
As bankers quick the City leave
To spend their bonuses in Spain
And Easyjets go crashing by 
And blotting out the Luton sky.

And lads in flats wonder where’s dad?
And pregnant girls take after mum
And drunken office typists wretch
And dodgy blokes say to them “Come
and we will share a festive lark
in some side-alley quiet and dark."

But is it true, can it be true
This most unlikely tale of all,
Told in a garden-centre’s hue
a cabbage-patch doll in ox’s stall?
the Maker of the day and night
parodied under fluorescent light?

And is it true? For if it is
No fabricated Christmas songs
No bishop raging ‘gainst the sight
Of tinsel and Ann Summers thongs
The vomit outside heaving pubs
And midnight slammers in tatty clubs

No Wii Fit underneath the tree
No plastic game that lasts three days
No office party’s all-night spree
Can ever this great Truth erase –
Our God was born to take our pain,
And shares it, ever and again.

Foxes

I had my hair cut yesterday, and Mrs Hnaef referred to me as a "silver fox". She was smiling at the time, so I was somewhat suspicious. As a result, I have done some research, and have found several references to foxes. I am not sure whether she was referring to the foxes in Judges 15 or the one in Luke 13, so I consulted the Archdruid.

I suspect that her answer ("have a look at the Song of Solomon, chapter 2") may have related to the incident with the Christmas tree which I was supposed to be retrieving from the attic, and was not entirely charitable. I feel free that the careful application of some glue, coat-hangers and strategically placed (and Risk Assessed) tinsel will ensure that the minimal damage inflicted by my rapid descent down the ladder onto the tree will be all but invisible to the casual observer.

It's Christmas!

I'd like to thank Margaret for reminding us that it is now the Orthodox period of Christmas.

In Beaker tradition, we have very few sad festivals.  Those that we do have, we try to get through by hiding under our duvets and drinking camomile tea (although not at the same time - that would require a risk assessment).

And we weren't looking forward to the January mope towards Black Monday. But now we can celebrate Christmas again until then! And as a bonus, we can rejoice knowing that we have been truly ecumenical.  We will be lighting an incense tea light in the Moot House, and Hnaef can get back up in the attic right now and recover the Christmas tree.  The Fairytale of New York is back on Radio Husborne Crawley, we're out scouring for a new Yule Log. Somehow we seem to have a purpose again.  Apart, that is, from trying to find another branch of the faith that maybe celebrates Christmas in February.  You can't have too much of a good thing.

Archdruid Eileen draws the line at Frisians

I can tell Hnaef that until recently Peers could certainly be hired at very reasonable rates. But I don't know why Daphne's worrying about the geese.
In a panic over how long it would take to find those maids, he sent Marston off to obtain eight Friesians for them to milk. Instead, being differently-intelligent, Marston came back with a bunch of Frisians. The Community food budget is tight enough as it is, without having a bunch of Dutchmen eating us out of house and home.

Post-Yule

As we settle down from the post-Yule frenzy and get seriously into contemplating the full 12 days of Christmas, this is a lovely quote on yet another blog of the often-productive and ever-interesting Yew Tree.  Few people have quite as many blogs, no matter how hard they try, and few occupy so many places on the blogroll when they get started.

Now, to the main business. I caught Daphne Hnaef trying to remove the Christmas Tree from the Refectory this morning on the grounds that "Christmas is over". Thankfully, it being rather a large tree, I heard the sound of the chains being attached to the JCB and nipped the removal in the bud.  I believe Hnaef himself has already been constrained to remove his own tree from the Deputy-Arch-Executive-Assistant-Druidical quarters. To make it quite clear, it is Christmas until 5 January. It ends no sooner, and no later, and is officially over when we burn the greenery on Twelfth Night. This is not some made-up, post-modern consumerist spirituality we're peddling here: some of our traditions go back literally years.

Traditional Boxing Day - or not - Activities

Normally after a long period of "religious relaxation" like the last two days, the Beaker People would be too busy avoiding daylight and sudden sounds to get too over-excited on theological matters.

But because yesterday was Sunday, and the day before that Christmas Day, instead there's all sorts of controversy going on.

Drayton Parslow turned up this morning carrying a football and asking if everyone was ready for the traditional Boxing Day football match. We told him that the football match was played yesterday, that after 90 minutes were up they buried the dead and delivered the critically injured to MK General, and could he clear off? But Drayton, who for reasons we can't quite comprehend has turned up in Hunting Pink, responded by charging down the upper floors where many Beaker Folk were still softly sleeping, blowing a hunting horn and shouting "Tally Ho".

With a group of tired and hungover Beaker People now threatening to amend the tradition and hunt Drayton across the fields and hedges of Central Bedfordshire, I was forced to call an Emergency Mini-Moot.  This in itself took a while to arrange, as Burton Dasset ploughed through the Greate Booke of Rules to work out if Emergency Mini-Moots are allowed on the feasts of apostles. He pointed out that there was nothing in the Booke to say we were allowed. We pointed out there was no mention, anywhere in the book, of us not being allowed. In which case, said Burton, whether we can hold an Emergency Mini-Moot is critically dependent on whether we adopt an Æquiprobabilist or Probabiliorist attitude towards the holding of Emergency Mini-Moots.
In the end we tied Burton up and left him in the Refectory while we got on with things.

So the question was - is today Boxing Day, as Drayton claimed, or is it "The Monday off after Christmas", as others claimed?
In the "today is not Boxing Day" corner, Marston alleged that Boxing Day is always the Feast of Stephen, and since that's never transferred from Sunday, today is therefore, being St John not the Baptist's Day, not Boxing Day.
But Drayton's argument was that Boxing Day is the traditional day for post-Christmas sports. Yesterday being a Sabbath day, when football, boxing, hunting and cricket are all forbidden to gentle Christian folk, today must surely be Boxing Day. Most people just asked us to get a move on so they could all go back to bed.

In the end there was nothing for it but to refer to the Even Biggere Webbe Page of Rules, i.e. Wikipedia.
This told us that today is the Statutory Holiday for Christmas Day, and tomorrow is the Statutory Holiday Boxing for Boxing Day. So we were all wrong.

Since today turns out to be a Statutory Holiday, several of the more activist Beaker Folk have now gone off to make Tory Statues as a traditional activity. We'll be pushing the statues off the roof of the Moot House later. Meanwhile Drayton has gone off in a huff to try and find a fox to chase around. He's not using any hounds, and he's unlikely to catch one, so we're pretty sure he's not breaking the law.

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With thanks to @kneewax for the inspiration.

Drayton Parslow's Christmas Message

And so, as Christmas so often does, it causes me to look back over the year. And an interesting one it has been.

After the unexpected disappearance of Eileen and the Hnaefs, I spent a while trying to persuade the Beaker People that remained to give up their neo-pagan, pseudo-Christian ways and forswear tea lights, tear down the idols in the Moot Hall and join me in embracing the Protestant faith.
What a failure. Indeed I failed as did Orwulf the Baptist when he challenged the Amersham Anglicans to a "who has the biggest miracles" competition in 1687. His prayers totally failed to cause porridge to fall from the sky, and only a rapid disappearance in the direction of the Chalfonts, where they believe in that kind of thing, saved him from a watery martyrdom.

But setting my face like flint, I made the journey to Frisby-on-Soar where I became Baptist pastor. Truly the happiest days of my life. The successful "Baptibus" campaign, where we scoured the highways and byways of Leicestershire in search of the fallen to bring into the Kingdom (I know the original Biblical image is of a feast, but I shy away from the image, containing as it does the implication that God may like fun).
And then happiest of all when Marjorie returned to me.

But truly, what God gives he takes away. And after a mistake over the zoology of 8th Century BC Judah, I found myself on my way. The Frisby Baptists brook no dissent. Or, to be more accurate, they're quite fond of dissent. It's heresy and heretics they despise. But Eileen, to give her her due, has been very kind and let me rent a room and the Chapel at very reasonable rates. With my new congregation of funambulist fundamentalist Baptists, I've a new mission and new hope.

And today, of all days.  I have a new gift to celebrate. Marjorie's term as pastor of Frisby Independent Baptists has come to an end. Apparently in her Christmas sermon this morning she suggested that avarice and gluttony are just as sinful as sexual sins - even as much as sexual sins that other people know about. And lacking any biblical evidence to prove her wrong, instead they latched onto the fact that no woman should speak or teach in church. They seem to have overlooked her gender just as long as she was not upsetting her.

So Marjorie is back, it is Christmas Day. I believe I may open a low-calorie bottle of non-alcoholic Irn Bru to celebrate. A happy Christmas to you all. Even the Frisby Baptists.

Christmas Day

If you're reading this on Christmas Day, you've probably finished your dinner, watched the Queen on telly (if you're British and that's your tradition), then realised that, after the pud and the wine and the rest, you want away from the family for a while. If so - go and have that game of charades / watch the TV special / eat a turkey sandwich. You know you want to.
Or you're a panicking American pastor needing to find a sermon, and googling in a hurry. God bless, and I hope it goes well. I always think that "the light shineth in the darkness" is the way to go.

The Community is closed today. Normal service will be resumed shortly. But have a blessed Christmas.