This is our hallway - last year. Because I haven't put any decorations up. Not yet. We couldn't if we wanted to but we don't want to. Not yet. We have just had the windows replaced, as well as the rendering on the front of the house. I am all of a kerfuffle. I have lost three weeks of my life to dust, unplugged phone lines and wi-fi, scaffolding and big spiders. I am barely back in the habit of having regular showers - let alone Christmas Decorations. And it's TOO EARLY! I am downcast by Black Friday - watching people who fought last year in Tesco's car park for a 28 inch telly, now coming back and fighting again for a 40 inch telly because the Internet tells them that they have to. Bah!
I am bad tempered, tired with little positive to say about Christmas and I love Christmas. According to the You Tube people - this week is Jingle Week enabling me to buy my Christmas clothes and make-up. Hah! Well you know what you can do with that.
Yet, in the middle of all this, there is just a tiny hint. Something is stirring. Think of the Wise Men. They had maybe spent years and years studying astrological charts, watching the skies and reading the stars. Looking to make sure that they had got it right - that a king - a promised Messiah was on the way. Maybe they just noticed a few subtle changes in the skies, before they ever saw THE star.
Just thinking about Mary, alone and quiet - rubbing her belly and thinking and wondering what was to come. In the middle of the madness that has so successfully claimed Christmas, I'm trying to stop and look at the skies. I'm wondering how it felt, if it felt any different at all, in those moments, just before the miracle, when God's great rescue plan began to move into action. And I want to claim it back. I want Christmas to be about the baby who would be Saviour and before it all starts, I want to quietly take my time and think about what is to come.
Linking up with Tracing Rainbows - A Pause in Advent
Absolutely right. Do you know of Ann Voskamp? There is a button for her blog on mine - hers is called A Holy Experience. She has written very movingly just lately about capturing Christmas for Jesus - and rediscovering the heart of the scriptures for the Messiah's birth. I bought her new book, The Greatest Gift, last Christmas and felt incredibly blessed for reading it through Advent - and I am looking forward to starting again tomorrow with it in one hand and the Bible in the other. Hugs xxx
ReplyDeleteHello. Yes I do know about Ann. Am thinking lots about capturing Christmas for Jesus (great phrase) both publicly and personally.
DeleteI share your frustration with Black Friday, Jingle Week, and all this commercialisation. I do hope the dust has settled now and you can look out through your new windows to see the stars. Advent Blessings xx
ReplyDeleteHello Ang, we are going through nothing compared to you I suspect. We are getting there now thank you.
DeleteI just don't get the Black Friday thing! So stupid! And people fall for it. Oooh, you must go and buy it, you need it! For our house, we have NO current technology- everything is old, dated, second hand or we don't have it (no TV, no DVD player, no DAB radio etc)
ReplyDeleteThe only thing is my stupid out of control clothing collection! Need to work on that. x
I would be grateful if you didn't work on your fantastic, full of inspiration clothing collection :-)
DeletePeace to you. Maybe this song, in aligning your heart with the solemn joy and mystery of the season. xx
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5n6X9sUznI
Quite, quite lovely. Thank you xx
ReplyDeleteOh do take your time quietly! I look forward to listening quietly at your door, or maybe bumping into you as we gaze at the winter skies, dark and burgeoning.
ReplyDeleteA lovely thought - I was horrified at the scenes on the TVs on Black Friday!
ReplyDelete