Santa Tracker

This year, once more, you can track Santa here. A great bit of fun for the kids (and the non-kids) among us. The videos of Santa delivering in major cities as he makes his way across the world are pretty cool too!

Nativity

I have just finished watching the BBC Nativity four parter. Thanks to John Orr for the heads-up on this.

It was a beautiful re-telling of the familiar tale. The acting and script were superb. One thing I really enjoyed was how the writer - Tony Jordan - made the characters more "real". The story generally followed Mary (and Joseph to a lesser extent), a shepherd and the magi.

I loved the way Mary's pregnancy was dealt with. Joesph being very hurt and unaccepted (won't you!); Mary's parents shock and anger; the reaction of the people in the market in Nazareth towards Mary; Joseph's cousin rejecting Joseph because of Mary. Although none of this features in the biblical references to the nativity, it seems right those scenarios would have been exactly what Mary and Joseph faced.

If you haven't seen it, watch in on iplayer. You will not fail to be moved.

My last Advent

Today was my home church's nativity play. Before the play, Spot and I had been asked if we'd like to be animals. We politely declined.

I wanted (and did) to sit at the back and enjoy the play. The first time I have done for years. Being a young church leader, I was always involved one way or another.

Just before the service started, I nipped to the loo. One of the costume designers (they are amazing!) asked why I wasn't taking part. My minister suggested I was being all "bah-humbug", to which I responded "no, I just want to sit at the back with the ordinary people and watch". "That'll be the last time, ever", she retorted.

"Precisely!" was my answer.

I know all to well, I will never again be able to fully take the back seat during advent and Christmas. It's been good, so far this advent, to do so. I have really enjoyed it and will cherish it, as it is also the last Christmas I will have at my home church.

Though at the watchnight service, I won't be taking a backseat. I am doing the address! No big deal, just one of the biggest events in the Christian calendar and the one service the year where anyone can be there. God wants me to be there. And I am humbled and honoured to obey.

Being "someone else"

I'm finding work - my current paid employment, rather - frustrating at the moment. It's not what I'm called to do. I've never especially liked it (though I have been there 10 years!) and it's never really engaged or challenged me.

Now I am, officially, a candidate in training for ministry, the feeling of frustration is greater than it's ever been. While I have accepted my office's voluntary severance scheme, my colleagues do not know why I am leaving. I haven't revealed this as I have been bullied in the past for my faith and I know there are many very critical people I have to work with everyday who, if they knew I was going to be a minister, would knit pit everything I said and did - "you doing/saying that and you're going to be a minister." Yes, it's tough.

Being there, I can't be who I am. I know my colleagues see me as tight fisted, weird and boring. Yet, those who know me outwith work don't. They see me as a very loving, caring, interesting person. How can this be? Because where people see me as caring I am being me and I am respected for being so. I am not at work.

I don't fit into their "norms". I don't especially like shopping and don't own a TV, so can't talk about X Factor or Strictly Come Dancing. When I used to be asked what I was up to at the weekend - youth club, young church, church coffee morning, bird watching - it didn't go down well. Now, I'm not asked and, pointedly, my nearby colleagues are asked how their weekends were. I'm not.

I was telling Spot this on the way home from work on Friday and he says he finds it frustrating too. "Look at it from my perspective. 'What were you up to at the weekend, Spot?' Oh, I went with Mrs Gerbil as she preached at our church yesterday and she was bloody good. Until you go, I can't do that." He's dead proud of me.

There are a handful of my colleagues who know I am not just leaving  on  a whim. They know I will have a plan. These colleagues have asked me and I have confirmed I do have one and explained I have a very good reason for keeping it quiet at the moment. They have respected this and will, genuinely, be interested when I do reveal myself.

It's not long until I leave, thankfully. My official leaving date is 31 March next year, but I have holidays to use, so it will be before that I actually go. It'll be odd not being there, given the time I have been there. But I know it will be a great release. No having to be someone else. Of being me and the person God created and calls.

Snowplough

Last week, Spot and I could have done with one of these...