A thought for today, attributed to Gustav Mahler: ‘Tradition is not the worship of ashes but of keeping the flame alive.’

Last Sunday after mass at the Catholic Cathedral in Bangkok I met three friends, two of them English the other Australian, for lunch. I mentioned that I was particularly struck by a paragraph in a piece by Bishop Erik Varden printed on the front of the Order of Service.

I had never heard of Bishop Varden. It turned out than one of my friends had met him briefly at a concert at the Wigmore Hall in London just three weeks before. The other had had dinner with him in Norway a month or so ago. The piece had been chosen by the Australian, a priest who had presided at the mass.

The coincidence does not affect the importance or not of the piece of writing. However I never dismiss coincidence as ‘mere’. So here is that small part of Bishop Varden’s writing that I noted and was in some way endorsed by those who had met the man who wrote it.

The piece was entitled, The Pain of ‘Why’. The second paragraph read:

A secular logic tells us that we ought not to suffer; and that if we do it is unfair. This can make us angry and bitter. We think things ought to be okay. When they’re not we feel we have been cheated. The Christian narrative is different. It sets out from the conviction that things in the world are not okay. God became man to heal our nature from within. The New Testament tells us that Christ healed the world, not by some wonder remedy, but by suffering through our wounds , investing them with his grace in love, making them glorious. Even death is relieved of its terror. Experiences that seem to us, humanly speaking, as dead ends reveal themselves to be passages, open doors, ways forward.

It is not that I have stopped thinking. I left my iPad behind in London when I flew to Thailand more than a month ago. It was sent to me here in Bangkok by Royal Mail. It never arrived – lost, stolen or strayed.

I have a new iPad. A Thai friend helped me find and buy one. She spent an hour with me updating the new iPad which is remarkably similar to my previous one. Everything that was on my old iPad has appeared on my new iPad. Many will not be surprised. I am. I gather it is to do with everything being retained on the ‘cloud’.

I think that this is slightly alarming, almost sinister.

I also think it is not a good idea to send things overseas by Royal Mail.

More profound thoughts may follow – or not.

I count myself fortunate to have lived almost all of my life in countries where the culture and attitudes have been shaped by Judeo/Christian values. The assertion that compassion is good and noble and not a sign of weakness is important to me.

A whole range of values have their roots in the Old Testament and are further expressed in the Gospels. One such, love of God, neighbour and self, has profoundly shaped our society and remains key to guiding my life and self-understanding .

Christmas can be a very tough time for some but I am glad that for many, well beyond the ranks of church-goers, it is a celebration of being together; of generosity, family, friends, and enjoyment.

I have already been wished a ‘Happy Christmas’ by various local Muslims, one of them a worker in our supermarket. An old Buddhist friend from Bangkok sent a Christmas message; a Hindu from India too; as have numerous others from all sorts of places, be they agnostic, atheist or whatever.

Respect for all people, not because of any personal merits, attitudes or status, flows from the belief that we are all created in the likeness of God.

This heartening and strengthening assertion does all seem to come back more fully into focus at this special season. 

Happy Christmas.

Last Sunday I sat on the sofa, glass in hand, at my younger daughter’s house and watched as my two English grandchildren decorated the Christmas tree.

It took me back to a time when I was their age and our local vicar, a good man, the Reverend Carl Tanner, asked me if I would put a Christmas tree in the church at Mount Peel, a decorated tree. Of course I did as he had asked.

There is no electricity in the Church of the Holy Innocents at Mt Peel so there were no lights on the tree but I did my best with the decorations.

On the day of the Service the tree had been transformed with more and better decorations than those I had used. The vicar had been to work. There was a wonderful star and yards of tinsel. The tree glowed in the light of the paraffin (kerosine in New Zealand) lamps and the candles.

In his sermon the vicar told us that the Christmas tree represents the universe. The tinsel, he said, was the Milky Way, (had there been lights they would represent the stars,) the coloured balls – planets, the fairy dolls – angels, the decorations included animals and birds, reindeer and sheep. And there was a lot more. The whole of creation, local and universal was represented by the tree at the top of which was the star of Bethlehem.

God, the vicar said, who created everything we could imagine and more besides, comes to us, as a baby born at Bethlehem.

I’ve never forgotten it.

A few years ago a fellow parishioner at St Agnes, Ruth Modeste, a good woman, originally from St Lucia, told me that her vicar had once answered the question, – Why did God choose to come as a baby?

“Because no one is frightened of a baby.”

I’ve never forgotten that either.