A belated post due to lots of dog training, beach and mountain walking and inertia!
I wrote a really fun play for my youth group which they performed on Christmas Eve looking at the nativity story from the point of view of Mary’s donkey, the Shepherd’s sheep and the wisemen’s camel. I also added in a dragon to show how the enemy tried to thwart God’s plans without success. Though there was always the bit that I had to miss out because it was a family/children’s service – and that was the murder of the innocents by Herod after Jesus and his family escaped to Egypt.
16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”Matthew 2:16-18
There’s been a lot of talk this year about Jesus being a refugee and how one needs to be generous and supportive to refugees [which is only right and proper] but how do we deal with those babies who got murdered?
Many Bibles headline this piece “the murder of innocents” – so here’s my question “What do we about the continued with the murder of innocence?”
Yes still today, and possibly more so than ever, the innocence of children is being eroded. As I write this I’m also watching TV and seeing the contrast between the innocence of the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the adverts. The adverts are telling me that taking my children to a regular playpark is boring and that I should be taking them to Butlins where there is light and noise and implied fun. The simplicity of swings, slides, overcast days, regular cornflakes, is now seen as boring. The innocence of childhood continues to be eroded.
I read a great piece in a book called “Going Home Another Way” a devotional for the Twixmas time. For the 28th December there was a piece by a man who’d lost his leg when he was five and he talked about the youth he worked with and why it was the more difficult youth who were attracted to him. And he says he believes it is because he lost his innocence at five when he had his leg amputated and they have lost their innocence with things like their home life, their parents, their friends, etc.
These were children in poorer areas but I think so many young people lose their innocence due to expectations, materialism, “having to do well”, and more. I’m sure we can all name things that took away our innocence long before it should have been and it has caused us to make many of the life choices we do.
I got this via an email on 28th December and I think the first bit is great but I’d change the last line
Innocent’s Song by Charles Causley
Who’s that knocking on the window,
Who’s that standing at the door,
What are all those presents
Lying on the kitchen floor?
Who is the smiling stranger
With hair as white as gin,
What is he doing with the children
And who could have let him in?
Why has he rubies on his fingers,
A cold, cold crown on his head,
Why, when he caws his carol,
Does the salty snow run red?
Why does he ferry my fireside
As a spider on a thread,
His fingers made of fuses
And his tongue of gingerbread?
Why does the world before him
Melt in a million suns,
Why do his yellow, yearning eyes
Burn like saffron buns?
Watch where he comes walking
Out of the Christmas flame,
Dancing, double talking:
Herod is his name.
But I think by saying “Herod is his name” we’ve missed out on being responsible for the loss of the innocence of our children – whether we’ve given birth or not. I think “Herod” could easily be changed to “materialism/expectations/being too busy” and I’m sure there are many more.
Perhaps the Rachel’s of this world now need to keep weeping for our son’s who have lost their innocence and refuse to be comforted until something changes?
papers, etc, do not want to let us know that. I heard someone say they were optimistic of our future. You don’t get that in the papers!!!)
For a week of mornings whilst out walking the dog as I walk past the park there have been a group of daffodils who’s faces are turned toward the sun, expectant of the day to come. I kept meaning to bring my camera and take a photo because they said so much to me about looking to the source of light and being expectant and ready for the day. Of course I forgot and now they are gone. It looks like someone has picked them. We have loads of daffodils in and around our park and often people pick them to take home. I hope these expectant daffodils have gone to a good home.
She is willing to give her own life for her chicks. I think so often we think of God as someone we go ask things from and “look to expectantly” but don’t let him cover us from attack/being picked/disappointment. This verse, and many others in the Bible, do say about God being there to protect and support during times of hardship and distress. I’m not sure there are any, or maybe a few, that say He’ll make the bad times go away yet too often the Christian message is “God will make things wonderful and life will be great” and then wonder why people fall away when life doesn’t work that way, when prayers don’t get answered, people don’t get healed, we get “picked” after diligently “looking at the source”.
I’ve just seen a post from a friend of mine who talks about 
page, put all my set things on it and then take my list of things I’d like to do and find out how I can fit them in; things like an artist’s date to write somewhere different, some study time, catch up with people time. And I also reassess if I stuck to my writing goals on the month before. I cannot say that I will leave it all until the end of the year to do this or it may never happen. But also I do not condemn myself if I do not do as I would have like – whether new year resolutions or my plan for the coming week.
choose to focus on the awful or to focus on the awesome or actually look at them as a whole and say “we made it through” which often is my response. In fact for me there have been many years in my life time that have been horrendous with smaller smatterings of awesome than we’ve had in the last 5, but I’m hear and I’m still standing and I’ll looking forward to what is to come.
Aspirational Adventures 