Well, hello. It’s been a long time.
Somehow, Advent has crept up on us. The evenings are well past the ‘drawing in’ stage, my yearning for sprouts is strengthening and there are only two shopping days left until Christmas. (Don’t panic. The last clause merely indicates that I can only muster enthusiasm for two more visits to the shops this year. Your stamina may vary.)
I very much enjoyed playing and singing some Advent songs at church last Sunday, and watching the spectacle of two young children wafting a lighted splint vaguely in the direction of the first Advent candle. My hope that said wick would spontaneously combust before the kids was, mercifully, well founded. If it had gone wrong, though, there was a large baptismal pool in the place that would ordinarily be occupied by a liberally-festooned Christmas tree. I suspect it will be making its annual appearance next Sunday. I’ll just have to wait.
Nevertheless, I spotted the first Christmas tree of the season at Testwood Baptist Church last Tuesday on the occasion of the Seriously Funny evening with Jeff Lucas and Adrian Plass. (Please note that I am not counting the various festive accoutrements that have been present in the majority of high street stores since, seemingly, September. This accounts for at least part of my attitude in paragraph 2 above.) The Seriously Funny book was one of the things that kept us on just about the right side of sanity in Thailand, and it was marvellous to hear a further collection of musings from the pair in person. Thought-provoking, inspiring and funny. Excellent.
Advent is a time of waiting and preparation. Just as you will have almost certainly been waiting on tenterhooks for this latest epistle, we have been waiting with varying levels of patience for a number of things to get going this year. Chief among these has been our long-awaited house move, a process that we started even before Sainsbury’s put their mince pies out. Which was about mid-March, if my memory serves me right. Since then, we’ve had the joy of offers being accepted, the heartbreak of offers being withdrawn, the ‘joy’ of having to complete a tax return in record time in order to satisfy our mortgage lender (the perils of self-employment), the bafflement of solicitors who are only tentatively acknowledging the presence of the 21st century (viz an email which read ‘I will dictate a letter to my secretary which you should receive later in the week’).
It now seems that, with a trailing wind, we might just be exchanging contracts next week and moving before Christmas. Three successive Christmases, three different addresses…
Meanwhile, to help you get into the Christmas spirit, this video is an interesting insight into how the run-up to Jesus’ birth might have been if social media tools had existed. Or how about some daily Bible readings from The Salvation Army?
Happy waiting.
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