At the door of the Church of the Annunciation at Nazareth there was a sign:

 ‘Please, No Explanations in the Church’. 

It was there to stop tourist guides doing their thing with tour groups and thereby  destroying the peace of the church for those who simply wanted to be there with God or simply to be still.

It’s a sign I would like to see by the door of every church, especially at Christmas. This is not a time for explanations in the church. In a sense I rather doubt there is ever much of a time for explanations in the church: The church is there for people simply to be.

As an old friend spends his time reminding me – we are not human doings we are human beings. That above all is everything Christmas is about – being. 

Being with family, friends, food, presents all of that and for me being with God  – The Divine Being who is always with me – God With Us.

Merry Christmas

One of the joys of a Sunday morning is the walk to St Agnes for the ten o’clock Eucharist. Part of the walk is through Kennington Park. Every Sunday morning there’s an organised ‘run around the park’ for small children. It’s actually twice around the park. Some run with parents, some with brothers or sisters and some on their own having, I guess, left a parent or friend at the starting/finishing point. Some of the St Agnes children run and then come on to church.

As well as the runners there are volunteers at different points along the circuit. They wear reflective jackets and have signs saying ‘runners’. They also have rattles which they shake as the young runners go past and they call out, ‘well done!’ and ‘keep going!’ They are there come rain, frost, sun or whatever and they are cheerful. I’ve come to know some of the volunteers and they shake a rattle when I go past – walking. It’s most encouraging.

On Monday evening I took the 148 bus from Elephant and Castle to Victoria. I was going to a Carol Service. A mobile phone went off and I wasn’t sure if it was mine and as I searched my pockets apologised to the woman sitting next to me. We also acknowledged the young woman in front of us who had a child in a buggy. The child was asking endless questions and the woman patiently answered them. It was rather lovely.

After a while my neighbour asked if I was going as far as Kensington as she wasn’t sure where she was to get out. I wasn’t but when she said that she was going to somewhere called ‘St Mary Abbots’, as I had once been a curate there, I was able to explain exactly where to get out and asked why was she going there.

It turned out that she was going to a Carol Service too. Her Carol Service was organised by a charity called Missing People. Her son had gone missing while on holiday in the USA, “fifteen months and eleven days ago” she told me. She has only this one son. No husband, no other children, only Alex. I had asked his name. She showed me a photo of him on her phone. He appeared to be in his twenties. She had bought the flat she lived in because it was easy for him to get to work from there.

I don’t know the name of the woman. I didn’t ask her that. She lives somewhere near at Elephant and Castle where we got on the bus. She was dignified and calm. Since the day Alex went missing she had heard nothing of him at all. Despite all the searching and enquiries – nothing. She said that the charity Missing People and especially its volunteers had been wonderful.

It’s the volunteers who do it.

When I began to broadcast my ‘Thoughts’ on Radio New Zealand more than twenty years ago I made three rules for myself. I would not do sport. I would not do politics. I would not do negative.

I’ve had no trouble in obeying my first rule as I know so little about any sport. I have written about swimming but not as a sport only as exercise and as a time for social engagement. The same applies to Strength and Balance – exercise not sport.

Last week I came dangerously close to breaking my rule about politics so I must be careful not to go there again.

In older age I find it increasingly difficult to avoid being negative. However to write about that would be to break my rule. So I wont.  

I have been thinking a lot about the Israeli Hamas conflict.  I don’t really know about it because I’m not sure what information from the media I can trust as being accurate. The whole situation concerns me deeply.

And then a friend came to dinner and we were talking about the dilemma of not knowing the facts. I told him that I am very distressed by much of what I see on television and hear on the news. The images are awful and the stories tragic. Here in London and throughout the UK there have been demonstrations and feelings run high.

My friend suggested that we judge people by the company they keep. I agreed. I did make the qualification that Jesus was often accused of keeping ‘bad company’ – tax collectors and sinners. 

He reminded me that the friends and allies of Hamas are Iran, Qatar, North Korea, Syria and Russia.  The friends and allies of Israel are the countries of the democratic west including the United Kingdom. Many of the Middle Eastern countries remain silent.

That is a reality which has given me something to think about.

I have lifted what follows directly from ‘The Knowledge’ which is an online news summary service that I get daily. I remember President Kennedy quoting, “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” Here, it seems to me, is a chink of light amidst the horrors of the Israeli Hamas conflict and all the cursing and the darkness.

History’s “default setting” is carnage and suffering, says Simon Schama in the FT – “the plague in Athens; slave ships; Passchendaele; the Gulag; Hiroshima”. But we shouldn’t overlook the “small points of radiance” that remain lit amid the darkness. One example is the Max Rayne school in Jerusalem – a “visionary” enterprise where Jewish and Arab children are taught together in Arabic and Hebrew, by teachers from both communities. Founded in 1998, and run by the “inspirational” Hand in Hand Centre, the school hasn’t had an easy time of it – it was burned to the ground by Jewish fanatics in 2014. But it was rebuilt and reopened, and today there are six Hand in Hand schools across Israel, all devoted to “sowing the seeds of a future free of mutual demonisation”.You might assume these ambitious ideals have “taken a beating in the present calamity”. But the war has made the need for this kind of cooperation “more urgent than ever”. After a two-week break following the October 7 atrocity, all six schools re-opened. Arab students have family members who have been killed in Gaza; many of the Israelis know someone kidnapped, or worse. It’s the ultimate test of their ideals – but it’s also “the picture of a possible shared future”. The Israeli writer Amos Oz once compared the conflict to a consuming fire. You can either run away, or you can pour water on the flames using whatever you have – a bucket, a cup, even just a teaspoon. The fire is huge, but these schools demonstrate that “everyone has a teaspoon”.