An Appreciation

As I write dawn is breaking. It is an icy cold morning and from my window I see an almost full moon shining on the snow lying all around. I was woken at 6.30 by a lorry driver announcing the imminent delivery of  the heating oil we ordered some weeks ago. He opened his cab door and the light and warmth spilled out onto the frozen pavement loudly accompanied by the sound of a brass band playing "Joy to the World". Ten minutes later our oil tank was replenished with sufficient oil for most of the remaining winter months and two grateful householders put the coffee on.

On a number of occasions recently it has occurred to me how privileged we are today compared even to 65 years ago (the extent of my memory). I can get out from under my warm duvet to a warm house in the morning and go warm to bed. I can step into a hot shower and start my day refreshed and comfortable. Recently there has been a BBC TV series called "Edwardian Farm" in which 3 people live and work in the conditions that pertained at the turn of the 20th century. In rural Wales in the 1950's many things had hardly moved on. Horsepower had been replaced by the ubiquitous grey Fergie tractor but life in the farmhouse continued very much as it had been 40 years earlier. Running water and mains electricity were just beginning to appear depending on how close to the main villages and urban area you lived. But that's a subject for another place and time. This is simply an appreciation of today.

I am also conscious of how privileged I am in relation to others around about me and this year more than any other in my life I have a growing awareness of the needs of others and the need to be of practical help and use. With God's help I pray that this will become a greater part of my life as I have more time in these coming months and years.

I am grateful that this year I did not have to travel over the past two weeks. I am grateful for family and warmth and a home and all of the mod cons that I take for granted so easily. I am grateful for the ready availability of food and warm clothing. I am grateful for friends and books and the ability to see and the blessing of hearing and music. And who am I grateful to? I'm grateful to the God who gave me life and who has provided for me every day of my life. I am grateful to Him for His coming into this world 2,000 years ago and for making it possible to find peace and redemption through His love. For all your blessings I give You thanks and for the greatest gift of all - your Son, my Saviour, Jesus Christ I praise and worship you with a grateful heart.

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And Heaven and nature sing,

Merry Christmas to anyone who happens to read this blog. May you know and enjoy the peace of the Prince of Peace and the fountain of all true joy.

And with that the sun rises in a brilliantly blue cloudless sky.

Darkness and Light, Despair and Hope

This Christmas my thoughts have turned constantly to the theme of light. Regarded as mysterious and even mystical over past centuries even science has found it to be somewhat odd. We are told that it is an electromagnetic radiation of a dual nature. It behaves like a wave propagated like ripples in a pond or as a stream of particles (photons). Both can be demonstrated to be true. The universe's sources of light are the great incandescent stars of the galaxy and the earth's major source is the sun. But I'm not so much interested in its physical properties as its importance to us as the medium by which we see. I often treat my eyesight as a given with little thought to the privilege of being able to see and appreciate the wonders and beauty of the world around me. Without light there would be no sight as we know it - just darkness which is not the opposite of light but the absence of light.

And what is true in the physical realm is also true in the spiritual realm. All of us are gifted with a sense of the spiritual and we see and understand spiritual truth by the light inherent within us. Most religions have some notion of increasing enlightenment usually by many years of study and meditation.

Christianity is no different in one respect only and that is that it emphasises the need for enlightenment. It differs from every other religion in its identification of the source of spiritual light and the the way of communication of enlightenment. In the prologue to his gospel John tells us that the incarnation, the coming of Jesus into His creation is the coming of  "the true light which gives light to every man" into this world. Long before his coming the Psalmist sang, "For with you is the fountain of life. In your light we see light." and "The entrance of Your word brings light". John echoes this when he tells us "In Him (the Word, Jesus) was life and the life was he light of men."

Christmas is all about the coming of light into this dark world. The prophets foretold it in those terms. They saw a world in darkness. "For behold darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness the people." But it is against this dark background that the prophet continues "But the Lord shall arise upon you and His glory shall be seen upon you and the Gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising." In view of this Isaiah can exhort us to "Arise, shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you."

Tragically John has to tell us that the vast majority of his contemporaries rejected Jesus. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend (overcome) it." He also tells us why so many rejected Him "And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world but men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil." In his prologue John puts it like this "He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came unto his own but his own did not receive him." If this were the end of the matter then it would be an unmitigated tragedy. Thankfully the next word is "But" - one of the most wonderful conjunctions in the English language and of the scriptures, for here as in so many other places it turns despair into hope. "But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

The latter clauses highlight the other great difference between Christianity and other religions. Not only is the source of light unique but the method or means of communication of enlightenment unique. St. Paul, in a magnificent passage in 2 Corinthians speaks of the blindness which make us strangers to the light and tells us in 4:6 "For it is the God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Christians are often mocked as those who have "seen the light". That is true for they have seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Not only so but now they have also been "called out of darkness into his marvellous light". In the light of His glory and grace we see truth - we are enlightened and we worship. For ultimately that is what truth brings us to this Christmas - to worship a God of love and grace who was willing to enter his creation to bring light and hope and peace and the prospect of glory into this benighted world. Willing to come knowing that he would be rejected and despised and ultimately put to death so that we might be redeemed. But it is through His death and resurrection - yet another festival of light against a dark background - that we find salvation and redemption and freedom and hope.

The angel told the shepherds amidst a burst of glory and light "For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour who is Christ the Lord."  Emmanuel - God with us, the hope and the Light of the world.

Romanticising the Past

I watched part two of Ian Hislop's "The Age of the Do-Gooders" last evening. In many ways I am a Hislop fan - I admire his self - deprecating wit and cynicism and he is an erudite and able presenter. Last night dealt mainly with the lot of children in the not so distant past - Lord Shaftsbury the campaigning peer whose persistence brought about (among many other things) legislation for child employment, Mary Carpenter the educator, Charles Kingsley the clergyman whose book "The Water Babies" instantly pricked the Victorian conscience and relieved the lot of boy chimney sweeps, Dr. Barnado the famous founder of the schools for destitute children and W T Stead whose journalism put the spotlight on child prostitution. It soon becomes apparent that Hislop will not airbrush out the failings of these Victorian do-gooders nor should he. The best of men and women are flawed. Neither is it a surprise that there is a touch of scepticism when he traces the motive behind Shaftsbury's campaigning spirit to a thoroughgoing evangelicalism - that is to be expected in this post-modern day and age. The thing that is so shocking is how soon we have romanticised the past. I guess that we are all guilty of it even within the context of our own lifetimes. Unless we have been truly badly treated in our childhood we are all tempted to put on the rose-tinted glasses when we think of our childhood. I guess that many of our impressions of immediate past centuries are strongly influenced by the romantic literature of the period forgetting that much of that literature was produced by the middle or upper class. Our appetite for period drama - Lark Rise to Candleford, Cranforth and Downton Abbey to name but a few recent efforts - has conspired to give us a very skewed notion of the recent past.

The programme faithfully documented the conditions prevailing at the time and brought home the true horror of the exploitation of children in the terrifying and dangerous conditions of the mines and the mills, the destitution of children left to wander the streets and fend for themselves and the stark reality of child prostitution. On the one hand it makes you realise that things have hardly changed - there are plenty of countries where child labour is exploited, children are left destitute to fend for themselves and where child prostitution is still common. But beyond that it makes you realise that mankind has not changed. These horrors did not start on the Victorian age - they have been part of the history of mankind since the dawn of time. Neither have they ceased in Britain. Children are still exploited and paedophilia is not a modern disease - it is as old as time itself but with a new notoriety enhanced by the internet. It is ironic that Hislop gently mocks the notion of original sin and the basic depravity of man in a programme which simply illustrates the depths to which this country had sunk within its immediate past and not, as we are tempted to think, a long time ago in a galaxy, far, far away....

Endings and Beginnings

For three years now I have been travelling weekly some 180 miles each way to work. I am not complaining about the work or the people I work with or the place at which I work. Rather I feel blessed to have had work offered to me at a difficult economic time. For two of the three years I worked almost full time - maybe nearer to 2/3 time - but this year it's been nearer 1/2. However, the travelling and constant staying way from home has taken its toll and the biggest part of me is glad that it's finally drawing to a close. I find it harder to get in the car on a Monday morning and point its nose North. The journey I make is from South Wales to North East Wales and the South / North Wales road infrastructure is pretty poor. I am faced with a Motorway M4 / M50 / M6 / M56 / M53 (which route is notorious for delays and heavy traffic for most of its Northern section) or alternatively a choice of two very beautiful scenic routes either through Mid Wales or via Shropshire. The North South journey is a no-brainer - Shropshire beats the pants off the bottleneck that is Newtown any day - coming up is a different matter. (It's ironic that the Welsh assembly Government have approved a Newtown bypass in the coming year). It is interesting that Shropshire suffers most from the seasonal agricultural traffic. The Shropshire farmers all seem to have the biggest towing trailers that money can buy and the year proceeds through hay, combine harvesters, potatoes, apples and on a Monday morning the livestock trip from the Leominster / Ludlow area to markets.

So I have learned to be patient and equipped with a well packed ipod. Alongside music I have listened to university courses on The New Testament Gospels and Epistles, Tolkien. C.S. Lewis and also a couple of audio thrillers - The Scarecrow and Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly. Then there is BBC Radio 4 which I enjoy. Recently I have listened with great delight to a load of sermon material by Tim Keller which has been a blessing as I've travelled.

The Shropshire route also has the advantage of a good fish and chip shop en route and in the summer a couple of delightful country coffee shops which help to break up the journey. The rural routes also have the advantage of passing through my home town of Brecon where my brother still lives and where I occasionally call. It's always good to see him.

So now it's all coming to an end. For all its blessings I will not miss the travelling. I cannot deny that I will miss the work and the people that I have worked with. But I also look forward to being at home. Home where the best wife in the world has patiently put up with my wanderings for something like 8 out of the past 10 years. Lot's of things to catch up on - painting , decorating - the list of DIY stuff goes on and on. I think this will be the third time I've finished work but if I've learned something it's simply this - it's great just to be at home. There's nothing to beat it! Pity that we often have to find that out by being away from it so much.

So this is also a new beginning and that also brings its own challenges and excitement. God has been good to me in so many ways and I give thanks to Him for so many blessings. I wonder what he has in store for me in the time ahead. The time I have and the paths I tread are in His hands - what a relief to know and lean on that!