Happy New Year

We're all out wassailing shortly, as is right and proper. It's the end of a grubby old year - and one that has ended in a whole bundle of grief, though there's been blessings. But before us lies a new, shiny one. Full of possibilities to try, to succeed, to fail, to light tea lights or meditate on pebbles as you feel inclined.

So as the Beaker Blessing has it:

May your every uphill have a downhill just before it, or just afterwards.
May the rain only fall when you've remembered your coat.
May the bright sun shine in the day time,
and not at night as that will mean some terrible catastrophe has befallen the entire planet.
May your sea levels stay level
and your conservatory not be struck by meterorites or bird droppings.
May your left turns be easy
and your right turns benefit from conveniently timed gaps in the crossing traffic.
And may you be yourself, inasmuch as it is achievable and compliant with the local jurisdiction, or if you are Katie Hopkins, in which case maybe you'd be better pretending to be somebody else.

Happy New Year.

The Church Committee: The Recursive Sub-Committee Vortex

Liturgy of Throwing the Christmas Tree Out Before New Years Eve

Archdruid: "The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious."

All: But the needles are dropping now. They lie like the manna in the desert across the floor. And we all get them in our socks and slippers.

Archdruid: "All flesh is as grass" and the Norwegian spruce is like unto the flowers of the field.

All: All the leaves are brown, and the chocolate baubles are eaten.

Archdruid: How desolate it stands, the tree that once was called beautiful.

All: The presents shall nestle under it no more. The children play with the empty boxes. And the "Frozen" action figures are already forgotten, like the people that rest in the dust.

Archdruid: And so we commit our Christmas tree to the dump.

All: The baubles to the big box of Christmas stuff, there to await the Nativity Scene, and to rest on the stairs until we get round to putting them in the attic in August.

Archdruid: The lights we wrap carefully, ensuring not the least entangling.

All: They shall be tied like unto the Gordian Knot when we extract them in November, and we will search in vain for the transformer that was lost.

Archdruid: The angel on the tree shall be wrapped in crepe paper.

All: I'm sure it's a fairy, not an angel.

Archdruid: But the outside bling remainest, secure as a stronghold, even unto 12th Night on the sixth January.

All: You sure you don't mean the fifth? 

Archdruid: We normally leave it till the sixth but don't light it after the fifth. It's a kind of via media...

All: OK. Shall we get this tree out?

Archdruid: So go unto the garden waste skip at the dump, old friend, and return to us anew as environmentally-friendly but surprisingly expensive compost.

All: May your needles drop like tears, as you weep and remember the days gone by.

The Church Committee: The New Diary

Advent Saturnalia

Ah, this happy time of year - I talk in generalities, as the news is as ghastly as I remember since the Boxing Day Tsunami. But amid the remains of the tinsel, the reversal of attitudes to life, death, reward and punishment that has happened as the world  - or at least the ageing Western portion of it - has become increasingly less religious, is drawn ever clearer.

For those with eyes to see, and a feel for liturgical rhythm, things have been turned upside down. If you live in contact with the world, and yet are not of it, maybe you see it better. The way we have inflicted Saturnalia on Advent - or maybe vice-versa.

The liturgical narrative, the myth of midwinter, if you like, goes like this. Things get bad, and then they will get better. The plants die, the ground freezes, the sun goes dark. But then the sun magically fights back. The daylight holds steady, then increases. The coldest of winter is yet to come, but the darkness has not overcome the light. The sun is coming back.

And the Christian myth - repeated though the ages, even - oddly - in the Antipodes where the world and seasons are upside down - goes much the same. In November and December the story is of foreboding, of hope that glints through through darkness. Of death and judgement and last things. But the culmination of this is Christmas - the annual reminder of Messiah's birth. We go into the new year knowing that God is with us, and we will be with him for all time.

Whereas the modem narrative of Christmas is this - we eat and drink and are merry all through December, at endless works dos, parties at friends', nights down the pub. And then we stagger out into the new year, bloated and dyspeptic, and realise that we have sinned and must make amends. The papers run stories of liver disease, obesity and trouble in A and E. And for our salvation we look to the gym, a dry January, and the promise to ourselves of that most failed of all human pledges. "Never again." And every year we promise ourselves we will be better. But every year we are older, and deeper in decay, and less able to restore ourselves by our own willpower and physical efforts.

What has happened? We have run the myth in reverse. Now we have our fun first, and then we have the grim foreboding of a joyless, arduous, abstemious New Year.

As we stand on the verge of another Secular Advent, I wish you joy, hope and good cheer. God knows, we're gonna need it.

The Moral Leadeship of Nigel Farage

The Daily Mail goes in for a bit of freelance Church of England bashing as it turns out that the Queen, and Wills 'n' Kate, are perceived to be above Justin Welby as moral leaders.

Well I don't know. That means the Supreme Governor, the Supreme a Governor-in-Waiting and the Chief Operating Officer of the C of E are all in the top four. And who's going to deny Malala a place? She has been a brilliant moral leader. So a result for sensible religious people all round.

But some idea of the quality journalism behind this piece can be seen in the headline below. I've screen capped it for you because even the shoddiest sub-editor has surely got to fix this sometime.

"Nigel Farage, of Ukip, got a respectable 39 per cent of the vote."

Which would have meant Nigel Farage  actually beat all the other people in the list. Except, of course, that the "respectable 39 per cent" that Nigel Farage got was for "worst moral leader".  Still, all have won. And all shall have prizes.

Not Tested on Animals

After having to deal with a small group of animal rights protesters outside the Beaker Bazaar this morning, I need to clarify something.

The Organic Sunrise range of bath products is suffering from typographical, not moral, problems. The "Shetland Bubble Bath" contains extracts of kelp. Not, as the label says, "kelpie". And the active ingredient in the "Brassica Refreshment Shower Gel" comes from cauli. Not "collie".

Are You Rapture Ready?

Are you Rapture Ready? Answer our simple quiz to find out.

1. The current state of the Middle East is......
a) The logical outcome of the previous state of the Middle East, mixed with the idiocy of Bush and Blair.
b) Predicted in the Book of Revelation.

2. If you're a Christian in Iraq you should:
a) Make sure you're somewhere safe. Probably pray as well. I hope we can help.
b) Rejoice. Your sufferings mean some fat get in the West can feel it's all coming to a logical end.

3. The best thing about your car is:
a) A low-emissions engine. Will save the ice caps.
b) A sunroof. Will save you banging your head when the Day arrives.

4.   The dearest possession in your house is
a) Your family Bible, handed down from Gt-Grandad Arnold
b) The family Uzi, handed down from Uncle "Redneck Jeb".

5. A vacant space in the car park means
a) Some-one else just left the car park.
b) Your prayers, over those of the daughter of an Ebola victim in Sierra Leone, have been heard. Well done! Your holiness rocks!

6. The growth of hunger and homelessness means
a) You should give more to those who need it.
b) The End is nearly here.

7. When walking down the street you look up
a) In case a piano falls on you
b) In case an angel is calling you.

8. What do you think of fracking?
a) If it produces natural gas then - subject to ensuring it's safe - it might be a useful short-term provider of energy.
b) Earthquakes! Random explosions! Landslides! Dividends! I'm in! For the short term, obviously.



RESULTS

Mostly (a) Are you some kind of pinko-liberal? You're going nowhere when the day comes are you?
Mostly (b) Better adopt the "braced" position! You're off to a cloud any day now!

Soon be Easter

And congratulations to the vicar of Killay, in Swansea, for the first complaint about Easter merchandise of the year.

What does Fr Tim think the Co-op should put on the empty shelves where the Christmas merchandise was? Seed drills? Chitting potatoes? Snow shovels? It's hard to know. This is the way retail works. If you have a choice between putting your products on a shelf in a shop, and in a warehouse - and you have a spare shelf - you put them on the shelf.

I hope Fr Tim didn't have any carol services before Christmas Eve. That would be blatantly consumerist.

A New Sign of Peace

Brilliant idea from Young Keith.

From now on, when I say "let us share a sign of peace", we use the Beaker "sign of peace". This means crossing your arms at the wrists, and flapping your hands to do an impression of a dove.

That way, there's no need for any of this hand-shaking, hugging, kissing or high-five-ing. We just share the Beaker "sign of peace".

It's a great relief.

The Holy Innocents

Across the country tomorrow, it's that special day of the year - one normally not surpassed by Low Sunday (that's the one after Easter) or even Trinity. Right across the place, retired ministers local preachers, lay Readers, church wardens, enthusiastic amateurs and alarmed Sunday School teachers who thought they were just doing the "Little Angels" 3-5 years old suddenly discover they are doing what is, according to tradition and legality, referred to as a "sermon", "meditation", "thought" or "talk". The paid ministers having disappeared in a cloud of Prius exhaust within 10 seconds of pronouncing the blessing on Christmas Day, are now in Spain, Dorset or in their secret bunkers, enjoying 10 days off after leading or attending approximately 55 nativities, carol services, Christmas services, Midnight Masses etc.

And these wholly innocents,. having got Christmas and Boxing Day out of the way, are right now checking the email the pastor sent in the small hours of Christmas Eve, giving them the details of the service for Sunday. And they're in for a shock. Because, when they were thinking they might be saying something nice and cosy about shepherds, they discover the minister has decided to keep the feast of Holy Innocents this Sunday.

So the minister has done it again. Legged it and left the awkward reading to the hired help. And Holy Innocents isn't like the Trinity. You can't get away with some dodgy theology and a borderline-heretical illustration. You're gonna have to face the story in all its horror.

There's a parallel in the Old Testament. The killing of the Hebrew boy babies by Pharaoh and - in the midst of it - the saving of Moses. And there's a terrible reversal - a dreadful second Passover - as the Son of God slips away - back to Egypt - while others die in his place.


And the questions comes up - in among the tinsel and the three-day-old Brussels sprouts - how come the Christ child gets away, and we sing our happy songs, and quote the prophet Hosea - but God lets those other children die? Why does a voice cry in Ramah? Why are Rachel's children lost yet again?

We don't need Darwin's Ichneumon wasp to tell us that life is cruel, arbitrary, ultimately doomed. We've known it all along. And we know that the death of the Innocents is not a one-off. It goes on - the Hebrew boys of Egypt; the children of Bethlehem; the Harrying of the North; the victims of Stalin's purges; Coventry; Dresden; Pol Pot; the Christians of Iraq and Syria; the children of Peshawar. And that's just some of the victims of deliberate violence. You can blame men for those. But there's the other lost little ones - from AIDS, Ebola, starvation. Some of those we can do something about, some we can't. But the same God, so believers say, preside over their loss.  And Rachel weeps for her children.

There's no escape for the children of Bethlehem. No way to bypass seven fools with bombs and guns in Peshawar. Because, on the whole, the universe works the way it works. There is no magic wand to pull them out of the firing line with a "get out of jail free" card. And Rachel weeps for her children.

And to conclude that there is no God, that this world is all there is, and the innocent will die unless we can stop them, does seem to me entirely reasonable. There's an honesty in atheism that some forms of theism eschew. The God who finds the faithful car-park spaces is not, in my mind, compatible with the God who allows the children of Gaza or Belsen to die. If God is going to allow this to happen, I reckon, then God needs to take responsibility. If God allows this to happen - whether caused by evil men, or by the blind cruelty of the laws of science - then God cannot be let off. God cannot be off directing traffic on the Westway while children die at the hands of evil men across the world.

One boy-baby survived that minor holocaust in Bethlehem. It is said that, after a time lying low - like the children currently lurking in Egypt, Lebanon, the safe parts of Iraq and Syrai - he came back to the village of Nazareth, And after 3 decades of dodging the powers of evil - the authorities of the world - they finally caught up with him, nailed him to a cross and killed him. Having got away with it as a baby, time ran out in the end. And they got him. They got them all in the end.

The babies of Bethlehem took Jesus's place. And in his turn, he took theirs. He joined them - one more Holy Innocent. One more weeping mother. One more insult against the face of God and the dignity and life of a human being. But this time the insult was directly to the face of God, and this time the Innocent came back.

For now, the blood of the Innocents cries out. As it does, over and over, against the horror of the systems men build to keep the powerful in their place and the weak in theirs - and they wait for the Reckoning to come. And know it will one day. And two women are joined in grief - as they will one day be joined in joy.

“A sound is heard in Ramah—     bitter crying and great sadness. Rachel cries for her children,   and she refuses to be comforted,     because her children are gone.”

His mercy is from age to age, on those who fear him.  He puts forth his arm in strength and scatters the proud-hearted. He casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly. He fills the starving with good things,  sends the rich away empty.