Celebrations for 5 Years of Brexit

 I've been absolutely overwhelmed by demands from a Mrs Trellis of North Crawley, asking me what we are going to do to mark today's auspicious anniversary. And though I generally regard it as the single most damaging self-inflicted wound by a country since the island of Zanzibar declared war on the British Empire, I am by nature a democrat. And the people have spoken.

 So the schedule for celebrating five years of Brexit this afternoon will go as follows:

1 pm - Playing of "Land of Hope and Glory"

1.01 pm - Reading out of all Brexit Benefits

1.02 pm - Going to the pub 

Unifauns on the Lawn

Please could all Beaker Folk be careful around the main lawn. There's a small herd of unifauns grazing there.

We're really pleased to have the wild unifauns here. As such an endangered species - they've never quite found quite the right countryside to inhabit - there have been many failed attempts to breed them in captivity. But here on the edge of the greensand ridge, they get that combination of well-drained heath and boggy lowland that they crave.

Please if you meet a unifaun, walk straight past it. They don't like eye contact, and they will run away quite recklessly, crashing into hedges, walls, and sheep, if you panic them

Please keep squonks on leads.

Death of Thomas Hardy (1928)

Yokel 1: I see that Thomas Hardy have gone 'n died.

Yokel 2: 97 years ago, aye.

Yokel 1: Spose in 3 years, the Thomas Hardy Society will have a big memorial?

Yokel 2: Spose they will, aye.

Yokel 1: Shall us get down to Peter's Finger in Mixen Lane? I hear their latest brew is a pretty drop o' tipple.

Yokel 2: Aye, after I've made these souvenirs.

Yokel 1: Souvenirs, Abel?

Yokel 2: Thomas Hardy 100 years medals, pots, shawls, tea lights, drip maps, dinosaurs, replica tombstones, model cats, little tiny Wessex the Dog to the Households, women being hanged... 

Yokel 1: Thou dost reckon th'art goin' to cash in, Abel?

Yokel 2: That I do, Cain. That I do.

Yokel 1: See ye leanin' over the rail later?

Yokel 2: I' faith. I'll bring a straw.

The Nightmare After Christmas III

How long O Lord until I can do something? Why did I let Charlii talk me into taking a week off?

I went for a walk in Aspley Heath. A very Beaker Folk thing to do, with all the nature completely not happening because it's so cold.

A couple of doggers were complaining that I put them off. But just as really. They were going to catch their death, up there like that in this weather.

This is just a picture of Aspley Heath, not the doggers. So don't waste your time squinting.

But of course I took some other shots, so thanks to my contacts with Keith's uncle, the Police Sergeant, there will a couple of blackmail letters going to their home addresses. Which is all good, light, after-Xmas entertainment. And every little you add to what you've got is a little bit more.

But the one thing that my phone would be useful for, it currently isn't. I always make an exception on weeks off for answering  calls from the local funeral directors. I feel it's a pastoral necessity.

But they have blacklisted me till next week. They said having me phoning up every hour asking if someone's died is putting them under unnecessary pressure.

And they've said if they suspect I'm "drumming up trade", as they put it, this time they're calling the police.

Maybe I'd better learn to knit.

The Nightmare After Christmas II

My post-festive break continues.

I've taken to checking my emails just in case an emergency comes up. I don't know why it should. Nothing ever has.

I thought I'd walk round in case anyone needed spiritual guidance. But everyone taps the side of their noses to show they know the rules, and talks to me about football. Which, given Liverpool's position in the league, isn't so bad. But nobody wants to share any crises with me.

I'm starting to realise why vicars in the Church of England never really retire - just keep coming back in increasingly lower-paid roles.

Maybe I could reorganise the Beaker Common Prayer books in the Moot House.

That's not really work, is it?

The Nightmare After Christmas

Second day genuinely off after all the Yule and Christmas activities.

Day one was fine. Just laying around drinking gin and watching the Last of the Summer Wine CDs that Keith bought me for Christmas.

Day two is rather different.

First up, I've already watched as far as the Seymour years. And I don't need to listen to any more comedy Northern accents.

And I like to deliver things. Occasions, ceremonies, studies, meditations.

Just not delivering is very challenging. I tried reading a book but they're so... booky.

Maybe I could just do a rota?

Burning the Greens

 Apologies for the lack of posting over the Festive Period - such a lot of activity, what with celebrating all the ancient Pagan festivals and the Christian ones.

But we emerge from the tinsel, turkey, and trauma to the wonders of Epiphany and Orthodox Christmas Eve, when we start all over again for another 12 days. It's a short life but a merry one, being a Beaker Person.

There go the baubles

Last night, Dragmir was inspired to recreate the ancient tradition of "Burning the Greens". Thomas Hardy wrote about it in his deeply sad poem, "Burning the Holly": 

" But we still burn the holly
On Twelfth Night; burn the holly
As people do: the holly,
Ivy, and mistletoe."

And you may think burning the dried-up evergreen decs isn't such an environmentally-friendly thing to do.

But I can tell you, it was even worse when Dragmir set fire to all the tinsel, plastic trees, and fairy lights. Things were still exploding in the skip well into the early hours.

Some old traditions can be brought up to date. 

Maybe not this one.

The Word Became Flesh

 Something changes on Christmas night.

I mean, yeah obviously Mary becomes a mother and Jospeh a presumably still-confused stepfather and the boy who is to be King of the World is in a manger and angels and shepherds and Magi and all that stuff.

But something changes for God.

It's like this - in the beginning God created the heaven and earth. And it was all good. It was all good.We can debate what we mean by "good" in a universe where life can only exist because stars have died, on a planet where it's the geological movements that create volcanoes and earthquakes that also recycle the essential elements of life. But we don't have all night. I think it's somewhere in that the universe is beautiful and also terrifying. And in that respect, I suspect, it resembles its creator just as the creator has put the divine image into all of us. And because we have the divine image, we work to understand this amazing world that God created. And because it's good, our science and our art all work to build our understanding.

And God has created this universe like an artist. God can stand back from the creation and admire it.

Until Christmas Night.

Because now, God the Son, the Word - the one through whom everything was created - is seeing it all from the inside. Not just as a creator - as a creature.

The blobby brown shapes of Mary and Joseph as they care for him.

The smell of warm milk. The odd-for-a-newborn whiff of animal droppings and fresh hay.

Reaching out and touching, as best as the swaddling bands would allow him - touching the hay. Grabbing the finger of the shepherd who has dropped in to wonder.

The sounds of the womb, replaced with the sounds of breathing, the wind outside, maybe some angels still allowed in the area around where the little family rested.

So God found what it's like to be a human being. To be in it with the rest of us. To be one of us.

Something has changed for God. He becomes made of the stuff that he himself made.

He will discover what it's like to be part of a human family. To have brothers and sisters. Friends, and enemies. The taste of wine and the smell of blood. The joy of weddings and the sadness of funerals. What it is to be loved and what it is like to be hated. What it is like truly to live - and what it is like to die.

Something has changed for God. God has drawn close to this world. Become part of it. Our struggles are also Jesus's. 

And this world has changed. We have been touched with the divine. And we are called to follow him where he has gone. And because of Christmas night, we can follow him.

Have a very blessed Christmas.

A Christmas Message for Church Ministers

Just one day to go.

You've done 3 lots of carolling, umpteen assemblies, Christingles, Nativities, Advent Study Groups, crib Services, and written next month's "Thought" for tha parish magazine.

You've eaten your own weight in mince pies and stollen. Drunk more coffee and mulled wine than would comfortably fit in Willen Lake.

You fitted in two weddings and six funerals.

Now you’ve just got three Midnight Masses, a dawn service, and a mid-morning service to go.

(And, quite likely, Christmas and Boxing Day meals to cook).

Then it's "you time". Time to relax. Let all the adrenaline go.

It's time to  go down with the 'flu.

Enjoy it. You've earned it.

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.