A Liturgy for Rearranging Deckchairs

The Liturgical Space has bean bags replaced with deckchairs.

The Elder Rebel wanders among the deckchairs.

The Elder Rebel moves one of the deckchairs slightly to the left.

Far off, a band plays "Abide with Me".

Going to Egypt on a Borrowed Camel

Yes I know we did Epiphany on Sunday. But that was for the Sunday people. And now we can do it again, properly.

We've got the gentler, kinder midweek crowd this time, of course. So we'll be missing the Herod and slaughter of the innocents stuff. Just focussing in on the gold and frankincense. Maybe not the myrrh. Too much to do with suffering and crucifixion and stuff like that, and it was probably a mistake to mention it Sunday. Only makes people remember that Christians are still persecuted around the world and suffering goes along with following Jesus. And who want to consider that when it's still Xmas?

So instead we'll be singing "We Two Kings", which is technically just as Biblical as the original. And we'll be introducing the idea that when the Bible says the Magi went home " by another way", what they really did was invite the Holy Family along to take an Egyptian mini-break and offer the loan of a couple of camels to replace the clapped-out donkey.

Anyone fancy a Creme Egg?

Do Catholics and Protestants Worship the Same God?

Yes

Liturgy for the Completion of Row 7 of the Periodic Table

The existence of four new elements is confirmed

Archdruid:  .....ununtrium, and flerovium.

All: And ununpentium and also livermorium.

Archdruid:  And ununseptium...

All: And even ununoctium!

Young Keith: Behold! I have created a nugget of purest ununennium...

All: Ooooh!

Young Keith: Oh, no, wait... It's gone again...

Archdruid: Why bother? It's all pointless......

All: That would be tuvaluvium.

The Rewilding of Husborne Crawley

We've been really impressed with the whole concept of "rewilding". I should point out that I was at college with George Monbiot, whose suggestions that we introduce real deer to the Deer Park and only use natural control methods with the moles on New Quad (i.e. hit them with a spade) were voted down nem con by the JCR. But the whole idea of having a more genuinely natural - wilder - unspoilt landscape - yeah, we love it. In fact we've introduced it back into these gently Bedfordshire fields and meadows around where we live.

Which makes it even more annoying, in these times that we are trying to go for organic living and free-range flood control, that I've had a call from the clerk of the Parish Council. I mean, at this time of night?

Apparently we've been "irresponsible" in our choice of species for rewilding. Well, that's hardly my fault is it? Everybody knows that, before they were driven to extinction locally, Husborne Crawley had a thriving colony of werewolves. And I can hardly be expected to stop them wandering into people's gardens - that's what the concept of "wild" is all about.

So I've put the phone off the hook to stop me calling back. If he finds out about the saber-toothed tigers we've released in the woods off Crow Lane, I'll never hear the last of it.

Christmas is Over

And so the Christmas Tree goes back into the ground in the Orchard for another year. We'll dig it up when Christmas starts again in October.

Some people question the tradition of digging up and re-using the same tree every year. But to me it makes perfect sense. It's environmentally friendly, it cheers up the Orchard with evergreen colour when the apples and pears are bare. It has a cycle about it that reflects the liturgical year.

And sure, the plastic is starting to fade a bit now. But I reckon we'll get a couple of years out of it before it's really knackered.

Compromising with the Guinea Pig Folk

I don't know why we keep trying to get on with the Guinea Pig Folk of Stewartby.

Every year, we get together to try to reach "common ground". Every year the Marston Vale New Religions Forum gets together for crisis talks as to how we can stay together. Every year I can't remember why we formed the Forum in the first place.

The Guinea Pig Folk's demands are as simple as they're unachievable. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with apologising for the time we accidentally ate their Guinea Pig gods thinking they were tapas. It was a simple mistake, and we bought them some more, after all.

But they demand that if we're going to get along in a mood of amicability, we should adopt their Guinea Pig Language. Which is, frankly, just whistles and grunts. So we won't. We get told we must abjure tea lights. And they tell us to sack the Moon Gibbon Worshippers as the Moon Gibbon, being a notorious eater of wombles and the Moon, is probably not safe around guinea pigs.

And frankly we listen to them, and we say we understand their views - because we are nice liberal people - and we want to work for unity, and the future continuance of the Marston Vale New Religions Forum. And then we go off and light some tea lights, and the Moon Gibbon People get upset at New Moon, just as they always do. And then we all tell each other we'll meet up next year. And then we all threaten that we won't.

These days, frankly, we just seem to get together for the sake of the argument. If the Marston Vale New Religions Forum didn't exist, we'd just have to wish each other well and then mostly just ignore each other. And who's gonna feel good about that?

Myrrh and Mythology

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him........ 

On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (Matt 2: 1-3; 10-11)

In the days of King Hezekiah of Judah - one of the few kings in the Old Testament who's not constantly being evil, just a bit bad some of the time - some people came from Babylon. And Hezekiah, being a kindly and maybe quite proud old chap, took them for a tour of the Temple - a bit like the Queen showing the Chinese President around when he came over in October.

A hundred years afterwards, the Babylonians came back, removed the current king, killed half the royal family, looted the Temple and carried the Jews off with them into exile.

I wonder what Herod thought that day, when another bunch of people from that direction turned up?

Maybe that they wouldn't wait 100 years this time?

Especially when they were searching for a king who wasn't him. Herod is probably going to think this isn't going to go well.  They're banging on about a star they've seen, and Herod's probably wishing he had a star himself. One of these....

Herod would surely have noticed this kind of thing.

If you're a merciless tyrant, the last thing you want is competition. If people start being in doubt about who the real leader is, you're in trouble. Especially if there weren't just the three Wise Men. We're not told there were three. Suppose there weren't just three -  imagine there were forty or fifty, along with loyal retainers. Imagine they weren't on camels - which are as much a part of the "Imaginary Menagerie of the Nativity" as the donkey, ox, lowing cattle and Little Drummer Boy. Imagine they're on horses. Remember they're from a scary, Eastern Empire - one that even manages to treat the Romans as equals. And allegedly they can read the stars, and have magic powers. And they don't have the three little presents of a nativity play - they have treasure chests of tribute. Of course Herod ain't happy.

The backlash, as I mentioned last week, hits the totally innocent. As these things so often do. But the Wise Men don't know that. This group of pilgrims whom Herod thinks are a raiding party go on down to Bethlehem, in innocence, to present that tribute. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The tribute for a king and a priest.

And in doing that they fulfil a prophecy from Isaiah - that the Nations will come to worship, bringing their tribute. Herod's been focusing on parochial matters - a little grubby throne in a little tatty, rebellious state. But there's much bigger stuff going on.

From now on, God has no favourites. No nation can claim to be more God's chosen people than another - not the Jews, not Western Europe, not the good ol' USA - nobody. Because the heir to the Jewish promises has been shown to faithful Israel - Joseph, Mary, John the Baptist in the womb; the shepherds. And now he has greeted the Gentiles, in the shape of these star-gazing Persian mystics. Paul will develop this - no Jew, no Gentile, no male, no female, no slave, no free. All will be one in Christ.

In effect, Herod is right. There has been an invasion. God has invaded Earth.

Non-biblical animal and number of Magi uncertain

And I think that's the message Matthew is sending in this passage in his Gospel. The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as the successor and superior to Moses. He's rescued from a slaughter of children. He sits on a mountain. He hands down laws. And the message is - one greater than Moses is here. Here is the truest Jew of all. And, fellow-Jews (because Matthew is nothing if not a good Jew) - let's recognise who he is. Everybody else will. The Gentiles have been to him already. They knew him, and they worshipped. The Jewish (or at least half-Jewish) king has tried to kill him. What about you? What do you think? He's our King as well, isn't he, Matthew says to his fellow-Jews.

Same offer, same deal for us. This Jesus is the king of the Jews, king of the Gentiles, king of Europe, king of the world. Our race don't matter. We can come from any faith, or none. We can come a short way or, like the Magi, the long way round. But he's still there, the King of the Universe. The stars, priests, angels and shepherds bow down to him. What about us? Do we leave him as the cute lad in the crib? Or do we see him as the promise of the ages - the icon of God - the king of all?

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"Death star1" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Follow That Star

Charging around Milton Keynes trying to find some myrrh. Not much chance.

Though I've left the really hard challenge to later. Where am I going to find three wise men among the Beaker Folk?

Sherlock and the Case of the Left-Handed Blogger

"But Holmes!" I ejaculated. "What on earth could the Left-handed Blogger have been doing in the year 2155, in the Whitechapel area of London, when all that was left of his murder victim in 1882 was the left ear and a trace of chest hair?"

He leaned back in the carriage, and the conversation ceased. Moments later I realised that we were not alone in the Hackney. A distinguished, middle-aged man was with us,

"My word! The Prime Minister!" I expostulated.

A series of implausible plot devices, ready for installation in Baker Street

"So you thought, Watson," replied Holmes. "So the Butcher of Gerard Street thought. But in fact, judging by the Raxacoricofallapatorian dust on his shoes, the distasteful odour and the tendency to flatulence, what we actually have here is not William Gladstone - who at this very moment is in Piccadilly, trying to save ladies of the night - but a member of the Slitheen. And after all, what could look more like a Slitheen than Mark Gatiss in a fat suit?"

"By Jove, Holmes! You mean you have just introduced a load of themes stolen from a different TV series?"

"Indeed, Watson. I suspect that when the authors of this little piece were in their mind palaces, unable to come up with a decent plot line, they realised that a Victorian  twist, some snow and something a bit spooky - all stuff they could rip out of something else they wrote in the past - and then maybe an analogy between the mind and a computer (think the Forest of the Dead) - would make up for any real inspiration."

"But, Holmes, in that case would one expect the BBC still to fall for it and show it on Christmas Day? Or would it be relegated to a less important day during the Festive period?"

Holmes took from his pocket a copy of the Radio Times, and indicated the listing for the show in which we were to feature.

"Elementary, my dear Watson".

A Poem for New Year

Same as it often is, to be honest. I love its starkness and baffled reaction to hope in the midst of trouble.

The Darkling Thrush

BY THOMAS HARDY

I leant upon a coppice gate
      When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
      The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
      Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
      Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
      The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
      The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
      Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
      The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
      Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
      In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
      Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
      Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
      His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
      And I was unaware.

1 Jan 1901