Winterreise

As regular readers know, I never exaggerate. Much. But with each succeeding moment my lower limbs are falling into a state of atrophy. No yomping, you see. A heavy winter cold, a couple of snowy days and the onrush of the Christmas celebrations have kept me off the fields and out of the churchyards. I'll return to the paths in 2018, but I'm missing it already. I hope you'll continue to share the Walk with me. Come by and see me again sometime soon.

In the meantime, I hope you've found the Christmas you were looking for. Friend Brendan Read Jones and I recorded a sad Christmas song. Brendan ( a talented film-maker) and his crew then shot a video for it which you can find at:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wyR7wVAUrsY&feature=youtu.be

If you like, please use your favourite social media to spread the word. And perhaps even buy the album when it surfaces later in the year ('Old heads and young hearts')?

One of the things we've been all too aware of this year is how many people face loneliness at Christmas. It's a theme which has been picked up countrywide, by the relatives of the late Jo Cox M.P. amongst others. Our own parish has faced some  tragedies of its own: there'll be some who are hurting right now, and maybe you're among them. Everything we say and do as Christians is in the context of a narrow divide between earth and heaven, of passion and redemption. All I can do, rather helplessly, is wish us all peace and the surprise of joy when we need it most.

Crash edit: a reprise of a seasonal poem I wrote last year:

Sprouting for boys (and girls)

Raise three cheers, give up a shout
For the humble, hardy Brussels sprout.
Be you Brexin or be you Brexout
They're cool.

Let's have a British Board to tout
The merits of the Belgian sprout
If Brussels objects, then dare to flout
Their rule.

Gregg Wallace says you shouldn't doubt
The vitamin value of the Flanders sprout
If you say nay, then you learned nowt (or should that be nuffink?)
At school.

Some folk rave over sauerkraut
But cabbage v. sprouts is an absolute rout.
Serve al dente with lardons all about
And drool.

Stave off the 'flu; ward off gout
With the iron-rich, good-for-you EU sprout.
Banish obesity! You won't grow stout on
Sprout fuel.

Kids will moan, kids will pout about
Something, so let it be the put upon sprout.
Tho' it makes them sigh I wish them (and you)
Sprout Yule.

I was very touched that Malcolm and Dot White used the following in their Christmas Letter this year. I wrote it for the 2016 Advent Blog at St. Peter's, Weston Favell.


Joseph on his death bed

One regret?
Always the outsider, me.
Mary and the boy
Like twins.
A family within a family,
Knew what the other was thinking
Before it was ever said,
And me alone on the edge of the room,
Or passing through with a nice piece of wood or two;
Looking in on their world,
Private and mysterious.

It went way back.
I didn't know her
(silly coy word)
Until after he was born.
Thereafter dutiful intercourse
And so along came James and Joses,
Jude and Simon.
But no, I never knew her,
Not really.
However that boy was conceived
I was always an anti-climax.

When he was small,
He helped in the yard,
Watched and asked questions.
In that sense,
Now I'm dying,
The business is safe.
He'll do the accounts,
Manage the difficult clients.
The others will do the work.

There was that moment,
Up in Jerusalem,
The year before his bar mitzvah,
He ran wild with the Zealots,
Pretending he was working for me.
I ask you!
'I must be about my father's business'!
I was incandescent,
Mary emollient,
And after that,
If such a thing is possible,
They were both even more unreachable.
Perhaps he'll end up a rabbi:
It runs in the family.
I suppose that's OK
Provided it doesn't turn his head.

Well, I'm curious to know
What will become of him,
But I'm like Father Moses
Looking over the golden, longed-for land,
The fulfilment of an adolescent exile
Not mine to enjoy.
He and I
We'll never share a pie and a pint
At the close of a profitable day.

The lad has an aura,
A strange unworldly kind of promise.
That's as much as I can say...

                                                                    ******

Lord,
Help me to drain every last drop
From the cup of Christmas;
To relish the singing of every carol;
To be like the child I once was,
Wide-eyed at the Christmas tree magic;
To be properly sentimental
About the family and friends I see,
And those who live only in the memory;
To treasure each moment
Around the manger;
To be grateful that You have let me share
This precious gift of Being.
Amen.

R.I.P. Ian Topp: December 2017.