This year I put up a Christmas decoration in my front garden. I made it from some old laminated chipboard. I carefully painted Mary in her traditional blue outfit (Wilko’s Ocean Spray) and Jesus wrapped in swaddling bands using brilliant white gloss (Wickes) I looked for a three-quarters used tin of something in green for Joseph’s cloak but nowhere amongst the 23 almost empty paint tins I’ve saved for touch-up jobs, was there a suitable shade. I eventually decided I could mix Mary’s blue with some yellow poster paint. Moments later Joseph had a green coat. An hour later it rained and Joseph had a brown laminated wood  grain coat. Jesus remained strong.

This year hasn’t been one of the happiest I’ve had but it hasn’t  been a total washout. Despite the sadness, Jesus has remained strong. 

At the base of my model I have the word ‘joy’ and at the base of my life the same word rings out. I believe it is possible to still have joy even when some of life’s colours fade. The old carol talks about the coming of the Saviour being tidings of comfort and joy. This year I have known the Saviour bring both into my life. 

When should you put up/take down the tree?

I put my Christmas tree up on December 5th. You have to slot all the little colour coded branches into the little numbered slots which don't correspond to the colours at all. It's a painstaking business even before you start decorating it.
Because my tree goes in the corner of the room I usually don't add the branches round the back, instead I put them between the branches already fixed in place at the front in order to give the tree some fullness. Occasionally I fasten these with parcel ties but when I get fed up I just balance them. I add the lights next and use a net because it's easier. and remember that if you are using a light net, you needed to put the tinsel on first. Finally I hang baubles and scented angels who no longer smell. This year having completed my task some two and a half hours after beginning it, I got the vacuum cleaner out to hoover up the hundreds of green bits which had dropped from the synthetic tree. It's quite a good vacuum cleaner so when I ran over the wire to the lights, it sucked it up and began wrapping it round the rotating brushes. I tried to stamp on the off lever but only managed to hit the handle release and lie the hoover flat on the floor where it continued to wrap the wire round its spinning brushes. By the time I had managed to stand on the off switch, the tree was no longer up and the lights were no longer on.
It made me reflect on how much Christmas sucks people's resources and topples their ideals. 
It's not what's supposed to happen at Christmas but if you get the true meaning all tangled up in the whirr and noise of trying to keep things organised, I'm afraid it's a likely consequence. 
The first Christmas wasn't tidy. There was no room to stay in and no cot to sleep in. The floor was probably a mess and quite likely worse things than plastic green bits were strewn across it. But the thing about Christmas is that light came down. Not by accident, but very deliberately. Jesus is the light of the world, he came down to earth to untangle the mess we're in. I love Christmas even when I take my tree down as soon as I've put it up. I know the light of the world has shone in my heart and it means I understand the happiness of Christmas every day of the year.

Ritz tips

Tea at the Ritz is a marvelous experience. I was given my small birthday cake in a huge carry home box, large enough for a big rabbit or average cat. The waiter kindly added several more exquisite cakes because I said it seemed a shame to waste such a large box on just one.  
After carefully carrying the unwieldy box across London, I entered the Houses of Parliament to listen to the King's speech debate. I placed my splendid box in the grey security tray whereupon the security lady turned it on its side and squashed it down so it would fit through the scanner. My horrified reaction echoed round Parliament square. Not since King Alfred had anyone lamented so loudly over their cakes.

It's sad when something precious is ruined by carelessness. I think in life it happens more often than it should. Christmas is the time when God sent his son to deal with that exact problem. We are precious, but I dare say most of us have encountered things that have tipped us and squashed us and challenged our security. I believe Jesus came to restore us to our original exquisite self, to put us upright, to rejuvenate us and to make us secure. Happy Christmas.

A recipe for disaster.

How come when you put steak mince, mushrooms, peppers, leeks, aubergines, cinnamon, black pepper, salt, pasta twists and home made white sauce into a dish, the finished product tastes of nothing? The sauce just sat on top and formed a thick skin which you had to peel back to reveal the slightly undercooked pasta and oily tasteless base.

It got me thinking about how you can cram  a whole load of things into your life and still feel as if it's a bit tasteless with a tough skin.

I didn't follow a recipe for my new dish, I just made it up as I went along and expected that because what was in it was good, it would be fine, If I'd had some helpful instructions for the best use of the ingredients maybe it would have been less disappointing. In life I've discovered that if I follow the instructions God gives for a fulfilled existence, I enjoy it more. 

"Why don't you come on over Caroline?"

At a wedding last week we were singing our hearts out to all the classic songs people prance about to at the evening party. Unaccustomed to such events and a tea-teetotaler, I was determined not to be labelled that most awful of persons - "a partypooper." Standing awkwardly on the dance floor in a pair of high heels now welded to my feet after 7 hours of gradual swelling, I joined in loudly with the well known song by the Zutons, made famous more recently by Amy Whinehouse and Mark Ronson. That morning I had been listening to the celebrations as England lionesses scraped their way through to the quarter finals of the women's world cup and somewhere in my subconscious, two songs became muddled. Fortunately in the raucous cacophony of a well oiled group, my new invitation for Caroline to come over rather than Valerie went largely unnoticed.

I was reminded of a verse in Exodus where God and Moses are having a discussion about rescuing people. God tells Moses,  "I will do what you have said because you have gained my trust and blessing and I know you by name."  I'm really confident that God doesn't get me mixed up with some other woman when he determines to bless me.

Short arms

 I took a rowing boat out on the lake at Blenheim Palace last week. The oars were locked in place so they didn't float away when some inept oarsman let go of them. This is a great idea providing the person rowing the boat has arms long enough to reach the oars. My rowing action is not very professional at the best of times but when I had to hold my arms out straight to the sides and then pull a pair of heavy wooden poles through windswept water I was struggling a bit. To add to the problem, my short legs couldn't reach the end of the boat and there was no adjustable footboard to brace my legs against. We did eventually make some progress through the water but short arms and legs proved less than ideal for the task.

There's a verse in Isaiah 58 that reads, "The Lord's arm is not too short to save and his ear is not too deaf to hear."  Sitting in that rowing boat I had a new appreciation of the need for suitable length arms. If you're struggling a bit with some rough patches, you can be sure that God's arm is long enough to reach you and strong enough lift you. He will hear when you call. In the words of Psalm 40,, "He lifted me out of the pit of death, out of the mud and the filth. He set my feet on a solid rock and steadied my legs." 

Shoe shine

 Hurrying out, I noticed that my black leather shoes looked a bit dull. Usually I would use wax polish with a "putter-on" brush and shine the wax with "polisher" brush. There was no time for this age old and effective method so I grabbed the liquid polish. It turns out  that the small floral patterns on the shoes are not just surface decoration but small perforations in the leather. Black liquid polish doesn't wash off your fingers or your feet as quickly as you would hope.  

I was reminded of a Bible verse in Haggai, " You have planted much, but gather little, you eat but there is not enough to fill you, you drink but are still thirsty, you put on clothes but no one is  warm enough, you earn money but put it in a bag with holes."  At the end of the chapter God explains that because he is with the people who feel like this, things can improve.

I discovered that because I didn't think my shoe-shining method through, it messed things up. I reckon that evaluating our priorities including considering the existence of a God who cares about us and doesn't want things to be spoiled or inadequate, would be beneficial to our productivity and ultimately make improvements that would make us less dull and less messed up.

Unsuitable

 

This week my husband needed a suit for my Mum's funeral. He has lost 5 stones in weight recently so his old suits are too big. I found one that was dark enough to serve the purpose and painstakingly altered the waistband on the trousers to fit. As long as he kept his jacket on, the baggy backside would have been fairly well hidden.

I called the dry cleaners who wanted £18 to clean the suit. I decided I would just give it a good steam clean myself and that would freshen it up.

I thoroughly rinsed the steam mop reservoir and laid the suit out ready for the cleaning procedure.

It was a few moments before the bleach in the tube between the reservoir and the steam outlet made contact with the suit jacket and the spots didn't actually go orange until I'd steamed the entire garment. My husband was still confident he could wear the suit at the graveside. I was less convinced.

Waste disposal

 There were three instructions on this bin and together they caused me a problem. I was more than ready to dispose of my rubbish considerately and carefully and happy to try it without touching any of the bin's surfaces, however my attempts at doing it from a 2 metre distance proved repeatedly futile. 

If the bin had been open to the elements I am pretty confident I could have achieved my goal in three or four tries. My problem was that the fixed lid for stubbing out cigarettes, seriously reduced my target area. It was quite a windy day and and my empty paper cup proved prone to drift.

I'm sorry to admit that on my eventual successful considerate rubbish disposal, I might have been slightly closer than 2 metres from the bin although I don't think anyone still watching would have blamed me.

Sometimes we find targets difficult to hit. There seem to be too many stipulations and we don't have the time or the patience to fulfil everything demanded of us. I think one of the reasons I love Christianity as a faith and Jesus as a person is because he removed the need for me to get rid of my rubbish by following a set of impossible rules. He just took the rubbish off me and dealt with it. 

Off the beaten track.

 Strolling briskly along at Bradgate Park  this week, I managed to miss my footing at the edge of the very broad tarmacadam path which gave way to uneven grass and stones. I pitched forward at high speed, propelled by the weight of a haversack containing a whole cooked chicken, a carton of orange juice, a tub of coleslaw, half a pound of butter, two frozen ice packs, a jar of caramelized onion relish, knives, forks, spoons, plates, a large flask of boiling water, a packet of chocolate brownies, some shortbread biscuits, four bananas, two jars of coffee and two French sticks. As I skidded along the ground in an ungainly manner, I quite enjoyed the gasps from the crowd of people I had tried to pass as I rushed to take the food to the picnic spot. A very kind couple helped me to my feet and sympathised with me as I limped to join my family, relieved that the only thing I had broken was a french stick. 

Two things occurred to me about this clumsy escapade. Firstly how important it is to keep to the path instead of trying a crafty short cut, and secondly how much the baggage we carry can make us unbalanced during what should be a minor mishap. You may be familiar with the Bible verse that says, "Casting all your care upon him (Jesus) because he cares for you" In life we often carry 'baggage' which seems to shove us in the back and turn a moment of difficulty into a full blown crisis. There's really no need to feel unbalanced when we hand our heaviness of heart and mind over to Jesus and let him carry it. You might be perfectly able to cope most of the time, but when your foot slips it's easier to stay upright if you aren't already overburdened. I love  this verse in Psalm 94 "I cried out, "I'm slipping!". but your unfailing love, O Lord, supported me."

 

Seams and wombats

 Last week I made myself a dress. The skirt part required  me to sew in two side pockets. I unpicked the first pocket several times before finally succeeding and deciding I would forgo pocket two. After gathering the skirt with three lines of running stitch I attached it to the bodice and overlocked the seam.  It fitted well and I tried slipping my hand into the right hand pocket. After a few failed attempts I looked down to check the whereabouts of my neatly finished pocket. The side pocket had disappeared. Further examination revealed that the pocket was sitting neatly above my buttocks in the style of a wombat's pouch. It transpired that I had sewn the skirt to the bodice with the side seams at the back and front instead of the left and right. After laughing quite a bit, I thought about the difficulty of lining up seams, and that led me to the virtue of a seamless garment such as the one Jesus had taken off him when he was crucified. We read about it in John chapter 19. "When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they put his garments into four piles, one for each of them, But they said "Let's not tear up his robe," for it was seamless. "Let's throw dice to see who gets it." This fulfilled the Scripture from Psalm 22 that said "They divided my clothes among them and threw dice for my robe." I was amazed once again that a prophecy from a Jewish book written seven hundred years earlier would be fulfilled by some Roman soldiers at the foot of the cross where Jesus carried away the sins of the world. 

 

 

 

Still water

 

Today I bought some still spring water. It turned out not to be still. I stood up all five bottles on the conveyor belt which gave a sudden jolt as it began to move.  All five bottles fell over and one rolled off the creeping belt. I delayed it's fall with my hand and knocked it deftly onto my foot from whence it rolled eagerly towards the door as I winced from the impact. I had not taken my own bag and was too ashamed to buy one as that may have indicated my lack of commitment to net zero. Having wheeled the trolley to my car I loaded the five bottles into the boot and took them to my house. I doubt the water remained still as we journeyed. When I opened the boot, one of the five bottles rolled out and began to make its way down the street.  Those five bottles were the least still water I have ever had the misfortune to meet.  

My outing reminded me of Psalm 23. "He leads me beside the still waters" The Psalm is famously about the Lord our shepherd leading us through the stillness and through the trauma. Waters are not always still, pastures are not always green, but when the shadows darken our path and the difficulties surround our table, the Lord still leads us, if we let him.