Molecules of Mercy ~ Celtic Advent Day 18

Hogfather stamp

We are coming to the end of the first week of traditional Advent (with the older and wilder Celtic Advent beneath it). This week I have been writing about hope, something which feels in short supply at times. And I have mentioned my feeling that it doesn't really matter if a belief has objective reality as long as it gives us hope, or peace, or joy, and harms no one. It matters so much that we have strength for the journey. Which is why I have never quite stopped believing in Father Christmas, or believing that us believing in him makes him real at least. Because I believe in us.

There is a quote from 'Hogfather' by Terry Pratchett, who I often go to for words of wisdom. It always takes me aback with its raw and honest beauty, only faintly hidden beneath Terry Pratchett's warm and wondrous humour. This quote often makes me cry, because even on my most despairing and cynical days it touches the little spark of hope in me that never goes out, the belief that if we wish for something hard enough it will come true.

In 'Hogfather' Death tries to take the place of the eponymous Hogfather, a mythical being who seems to be a cross between Father Christmas and a Norse God. On Hogswatch Night (December 32nd), the Hogfather grants children wishes and brings them presents, and he is also responsible for the sun rising. But he has gone missing, kidnapped by a group who want to stop children believing in him, or in anything, and there are plenty of people in our own world who would love to do that. Belief is a fragile thing, and Death knows that it matters just as much as the sun rising. Both would mean the light going out. Here, Death explains to his grand-daughter, Susan, why belief matters so very, very much...

"All right," said Susan, "I'm not stupid. You're saying that humans need...fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WERE SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little ---"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same thing at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY.  AND YET -Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point---?"

MY POINT EXACTLY."

(From Terry Pratchett's 'Hogfather')

And this is why it doesn't matter to me whether our belief has an objective reality.  It only matters that we believe in something. Something that tells us that life is worth living and that we can be better than we often reveal ourselves to be. As, the ever wise, Death also tells us, MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF.

A few days ago I mentioned the belief of writer David Southwell, curator & recollector of Hookland that 're-enchantment is Resistance.' I am quite sure that Tery Pratchett would agree.

'Happy Hogswatch' by funkydpression

References:

Hogfather ~

Buy the book from Waterstones

Buy the DVD (I am not familiar with this seller but wanted to find an alternative to Amazon)

Quotes ~

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/583655-hogfather

http://www.chrisjoneswriting.com/hogfather.html

On Hogfather as the best defence of Christmas

https://io9.gizmodo.com/terry-pratchetts-hogfather-is-best-defense-of-christmas-1747414176

Frost at Advent ~ a poem for Celtic Advent Day 17

Image: Jacqueline Durban 

Continuing the theme of hope, here is a beautiful poem written only yesterday by my Kent Christian Peace Activist sister in solidarity, Holly Elsie. Such a tender and fragile-strong poem of finding peace and hope in the smallest, most intricate, and yet most ordinary, of things. This is where we find the Beloved.

Frost at Advent 

Unfurling ferns of frost on the window:
The first sign of you in the morning.
Beyond, hoarfrost on fenceposts and fields -
All exposed things are changed.
And I know that winter
Is yours as much as spring.
If I could wait and watch
the slow growing then thawing
of frost on the window,
I would learn something of peace.
For hope is a perennial shoot rooted deep,
And I believe I shall see the goodness
of the Lord in the land of the living.
If I could sit patiently, faithfully,
Watching your microscopic work
Transform the pane,
I might glimpse that which
Could be...
And shall be.

Holly Elsie, December 2019.

Singing for Hope on a Rainy Roundabout ~ Celtic Advent Day 16

Kent Christian Peace Activist Refugees Welcome signs

I am several days adrift with my sharings for Celtic Advent and so I hope that I will be forgiven for posting several morsels today. There is so much loveliness that I want to share.

Firstly, I want to tell you a little about the Kent Christian Peace Activist 'Refugees Welcome' vigils, which take place from 7.30 to 8.30am on the first Friday of every month in Dover on the roundabout opposite the ferry terminal, which is where we found ourselves this morning.

I have been attending the monthly vigil since October 2018 and it has added so much richness, and reality, to my spiritual life. I won't say that it's always easy. Often there are only two of us and we could so easily fall into believing that our efforts are futile. But even that provokes many conversations on hope and how to sing and pray for better in the face of, what seem to be, overwhelming odds against anything ever changing. As I wrote only a few days ago, we can't say that we truly have hope until we have stood on the bitter edge of despair, and in reality in this country very, very few of us have done that in the same way that refugees are compelled to do.

And so we talk about hope; about being imaginal cells, about the promise that God will change everything in an instant ~ how then can we truly despair ~ and today we talked about the feeling that "everything is going backwards"; that the anti-life cult of Empire and patriarchy is increasing its grip, but which might instead be us sensing the death throes of a dying system desperately trying to cling to power. I have believed the latter for many years, and in that time I have watched many deaths. It has always been my experience that just before death a being shines even brighter, a last burst of flame before the light goes out and transformation comes. I am sure that its the same with outworn and outmoded systems.

The root of this thought came when I went to a talk given by author Lynne Sinclair-Wood in London a decade or so ago. She lived in Australia but over the years had spent much time in the British Isles, and particularly in London. During her talk she expressed despair that it felt that money makers and financial institutions had a stronger grip on the city than they ever had before. But I didn't agree. What I felt was that what had been underground; an alternative way of being based in sharing, compassion, love, and justice, had become stronger, was rising up to meet the oppressive systems of greed that we have all lived under for so long. And that it was this sudden clash that she was feeling. When power-over ways of being fully held sway, felt unthreatened, there was no need to stem a rising tide of justice; then we were a river, now we are the sea. The grip of greed might have tightened but, if so, it was out of fear that the systems that fed it were crumbling. The human world turns slowly. It might take a lifetime for change to come. I may never see it but I know in my bones that it's coming, that the arc of the universe is always towards justice, towards Kin-dom.

Some would say that this is wishful thinking and idealism. I say, so what!? In a despairing world it doesn't matter whether this is objectively 'true'. It only matters that it helps us to have hope. This is the work; the work of Advent. It's what we do while we're waiting.

And so, this morning at 7.30am, we were standing on a cold and rainy roundabout in Dover, as we do every month. The police used to stop; sometimes they were nice, sometimes they weren't, but now they rarely stop at all. Perhaps they think us 'safe' or 'irrelevant', but I am mindful of all those who have been thought the same but who have 'turned the tables over' nonetheless. Often we are shouted at by drivers, and quite agressively so. And often, and increasingly, we are given hoots of support. Invariably the person we now call 'sausage roll man' drives past, eating his sausage roll and waving encouragingly. He has a fine beard. He often gives us hope on our most despairing days. Last month, a man who had waved at us from his car emerged from a hotel just near the roundabout as we packed up our things to leave and told us that we were doing a fine thing, that he worked in the hotel, and that if we ever got too cold and wet we should go in for a hot drink. The universe is moving towards justice, but we might not see that from our tiny human perspective. In which case, what we can do is gather up these sweet and fleeting moments into a brew and a balm to keep us standing up for what we believe to be right.

We often say that we are an 'Easter People'; that we are living a 'Resurrection life', and so we are when we must so often be born again from the ashes of despair, and living as we do on a planet of seasons where spring follows winter, summer follows spring. But we are also an Advent People in a constant state of waiting. Holding the tension between these two sacred truths is where we find the Holy One, arms outspread.

We wait until change comes, and that could be at any moment; every breath it's own small resurrection, or it might take forever. What we do while we wait is what matters.

Today it felt that our time on the roundabout was particularly joyous. Perhaps because we are waiting, expectantly and at times impatiently, for better, but we are also close to a point when we can put our waiting aside for just a little while ~ the Peasant King will soon be born and he will Turn the World Upside Down, just as he always has. If the anti-life cult of Empire ever thought that it was safe then it has always been wrong. Here, soon, is a vulnerable child who will break their frozen places into Light.

White Cliffs of Dover

And so, we sang in the cold and the rain; 'Blowing in the Wind' ~ how many times can a man turn his head & pretend that he just doesn't see? ~ 'Jerusalem' ~ I will not cease from mental fight ~ 'O Holy Night' ~ a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices ~ and 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel' ~ O come, bright Daystar, come and cheer, our spirits by your advent here...

Singing, like poetry, breaks the world open, and so we did. There is hope in any voice that rises above the wind and the rain. This is the work we do while we wait; we keep our voices strong enough to rise above the storm. Whatever our faith, we find our ways to kindle hope.

The Window to the World ~ Celtic Advent Day 15

'Sacred Geometry ~ The Window to the World' by Jo Thilwind

Today, I want to tell you that magic happens. The painting above by artist & painter of mandalas of stunning beauty, Jo Thilwind of Dreamspace Art, arrived unexpectedly in the post a few days ago. I am humbled and astounded by the generosity of this gift, but when I read about it in the note she enclosed, I realised that the coming of 'The Window to the World' to the Hedgehermitage is threaded through with enchantment.

The painting was created as Jo's response to an invitation to take part in 'In All Its Glory', an exhibition inspired by the fabric of Chester Cathedral in 2016. It's based on a stunning stained glass window in the cathedral's refectory; 'The Creation Window', designed by Rosalind Grimshaw and dating to 2001.

The Creation Window, Chester Cathedral. Image: William Starkey

The window depicts the hand of God moving through the six days of Creation. William Starkey, who took the above photo, explains that the window depicts; 

"from left to right: God creates the heavens and the earth; Let there be firmament in the midst of the waters; Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit; Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky; Let us make mankind in our own image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air.

Amongst many features of interest in this wibdow are the pole or northern star and aurora borealis in the first panel, the earth viewed from space in the lower section of the second panel, and a developing child in-utero in the sixth panel. A representation of a brain scan is positioned at the bottom of the fourth panel - this actually depicts a scan of an individual suffering from Parkinson's disease.

The window's designer, Rosalind Grimshaw, was herself diagnosed with Parkinson's. What tender beauties then are held within the luminous panels of this window.

Creation Window, Chester Cathedral refectory, Mark Carline

And it was this window that Jo chose as the inspiration for her own painting; a painting which now hangs in our little house by the sea but once hung in Chester Cathedral.

Jo wrote in her letter that she thought of me as she painted it, and had meant to gift it to me for a very long time, but that it had gone into another exhibition after being in the cathedral and then went missing for two years! And then it recently re-emerged and came here.

Both the timing of the arrival of this painting and the subject matter of Jo's paintings for the exhibition have reminded me that threads of enchantment weave themselves under the fabric of the everyday in ways that we can barely imagine; Spirit on the move.

You may understand why when I tell you that her other painting was entitled, 'St Werburgh - The Goddess of Kindness to all Living Things'.

'St Werburgh ~ Goddess of Kindness to All Living Things'

At the beginning of Celtic Advent I wrote that the Advent season and Christmastide begin with a goose and end with a swan, that followers of Christ in these Isles on the wild edge have and do envisage the Holy Spirit as a Wild Goose, rather than a serene and gentle dove. And I wrote about St Werburgh, who is the protector of wild geese, in 'Resurrection, Reciprocity, and Rewilding'.

St Werburgh is also the patron saint of Chester, with Chester Cathedral as her major shrine. And here she is, appearing in a painting depicting the feminine hand of God amidst her elements, created three years ago with me in mind, exhibited in Chester Cathedral, lost for two years, and then arriving here in the midst of Advent and only a few days after I wrote about St Werburgh, who I had been meaning to write about for several years! I am in awe.

Writer, David Southwell, creator, or recollector, of Hookland, says that 'Re-enchantment is Resistance', an opinion with which I heartily agree. And the generous gift of this painting has filled me with wild enchantment. It has reminded me that we don't need to know or control everything, that we can never hope to do so. We need only to let ourselves go into the flow of Spirit, the river of God, in order to see wonders. All we need do is cultivate the ability to notice. Spirit rarely speaks to us through a burning bush or a column of fire. More often, it's through seemingly simple interactions between faraway friends, through the faint whisper of a bird's wing somehow heard above the traffic, a wildflower that won't quite leave us be; something incongruous, something everyday, something stunning, something real.

The arrival of this painting is, for me, an affirmation that Spirit is my, and our, companion in these quiet days of waiting; that the Beloved is speaking. And that gives me hope.

It will be treasured


References:

Read more about artist, Jo Thilwind here

https://www.saatchiart.com/rainbowjo

On Chester Cathedral's Creation Window

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3963993

On the 'In All Its Glory' exhibition at Chester Cathedral

https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/15978260.free-exhibition-inspired-by-elements-of-chester-cathedral-building/

On St Werburgh

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werburgh

Uncertain Advent ~ a Poem for Celtic Advent Day 14

Ice on the Somerset Levels, Jacqueline Durban 

To hope is not blind faith or escapism. To truly hope we must stand on the bitter edge where we can sense what it would mean for all hope to be lost, to look across the dark abyss of despair and still find, and be warmed by, the light of the furthest star. This is Advent.

Uncertain Advent by Alwyn Marriage

Can Christmas this year pierce the gathering darkness,
the daily news that plays upon our fear?
Apocalyptic premonitions shape our Advent,
that, even in the throb of Christmas preparation,
war and the plots of terrorists are ever near.
Christmas may warm our hearts,
but not till wintry chill
has seeped through sinew, heart and bone
with threat of horrors yet unknown.

Stars and angels tell a different story
of unquenched light and peace and warm goodwill;
a message scattering stardust down the ages
encouraging us to trust that all may yet be well
Through darkest night a glimmer leads to morning
guiding our hope and trust and longing still.

Waiting in the dark we cannot know
what lies ahead, of war or of redemption.
What images assail us in the night,
of rape and pillage, show
of rage and might, or light,
of long lost sweet remembered love?

Through the dark hours our thoughts
are turned and tossed
we snatch at tantalising dreams
of reconciliation
gently ruffling feathers on the
white breast of a dove.

Before the morning comes,
we wait, as night
aches on. Uncertain now
what shape or form
our longing calls to birth;
knowing only that those who take up arms
will never bless this earth.

Yet even now we dare to trust our longing,
that when the first faint glow
of morning washes darkness from our eyes,
all that our hearts were longing for in darkness,
will, like a radiant Christmas morning, rise.

References:

http://www.marriages.me.uk/alwyn/writing/poetry/a-sermon-about-uncertain-advent/

Becoming Hope ~ Imaginal Cells for Celtic Advent Day 13

Human butterfly crop circle, The Netherlands, August 2009

At Advent we are waiting for a birth, and neither waiting nor birth are easy. This is a transformation; subversive, uncomfortable, disturbing. Come, disturbing God!

It takes courage to sit with this discomfort, rather than drift easily and mindlessly into the secular consumerism and distracting over the top festivity of the Christmas period. Of course, for some, the demands to spend huge amounts of money, to prove our worth through the extravagance of the presents we can afford to buy, is intensely uncomfortable. Yes, Advent is a season of discomfort but, at its culmination, everything is changed.

Which brings us to this week's theme of Hope. It isn't easy to stay hopeful whilst we wait for change to come and so it matters to have images at our fingertips to help us. For me, one of these is imaginal cells.

These are cells that 'imagine' a butterfly into being, holding all the potential for what will come to be. When a caterpillar is ready to transform, previously dormant cells within its body begin to awaken and multiply. Even as the caterpillar retreats into its cocoon there is no part of it that is recognisable as a butterfly. Inside its chrysalis the caterpillar dissolves into a formless organic gloop and this is when the, previously dormant, imaginal cells begin their work.

At first these change-provoking cells are detected as a threat and attacked by the caterpillar's immune system. But they continue with their work. Initially acting alone, they begin to multiply, connect with one another, passing information until they reach a tipping point, and then, WINGS, a BUTTERFLY! Here, is an everyday miracle, like any birth.

This is a perfect analogy for the way in which we can be the imaginal cells for the 'body' of our own species;

• Tenaciously imagining what could be, even in the midst of structures that seem to be dissolving.

• Withstanding a world that seems set on its own destruction and which sees those who speak of a different way, who are counter-cultural as Jesus was, as a threat.

• Hold onto the thread of a hope that destruction and dissolution are somehow needed.

• Connect with one another in all manner of ways, offer support, gather, tell our holy stories of better things, wait for the tipping point (and the tipping point will come).

This is our work and we were born to do it. We must imagine, and never stop imagining, because our imagining will make it real. It already is.

I find this image liberating; both because of the vision of transformation through seeming collapse, and because it tells us that we don't need to persuade everyone that change is needed. There just need to be enough of us and everyone will be brought along. Until the 'enough of us' is reached all we need to do is find and support one another in working for change in the inner or outer worlds.

We are told that we are the Body of Christ, just as all who believe are, just as all creation is the Body of Christ, or for those of other paths, sparks of the Divine. And what greater journey of transformation than that of Jesus to the Cosmic Christ? We aren't watching that story unfolding as onlookers. We ARE the story unfolding.

And so we wait, we choose unknowing, emptiness, as a space in which God and transformation can come in. We choose discomfort, because we must. Trust. Have hope. Be an imaginal cell.

Come, disturbing God!

A Still Small Point of Light ~ Celtic Advent Day 12

Lighting the first Advent candle, Wiki Commons

Today has been Advent Sunday, the first of the four Sundays in our familiar modern Advent. I have had the sweetest of days, which began at the Church of the 2,000 year old Grandmother Yew in a small village not far from here.

St Nicholas ~ Church of the Grandmother Yew

The church is dedicated to St Nicholas, whose feast day is on December 6th, & so we celebrated his generosity with the sharing of shiny chocolate coins.

Gifts from St Nicholas 

And we all wore our festive hats! Naturally I took the opportunity to put my antlers on.

And we sang one of my favourite hymns, 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel'.

But it matters not to become too festive just yet, even after today's little flurry. Advent is a time of waiting, of allowing longing, even for those of us who have been journeying through the older Celtic Advent for two weeks already. Everything is born in the dark, and Advent starts with a seed and ends with a star, from small beginnings to an 'ending' as vast as the sky, but even then we will still be sitting in the dark. How else will the seed germinate, the star show us the way, how will we nurture the newborn spark if we rush headlong for the light? Which brings us back to the four Sundays of Advent.

One of the lovely traditional activities of Advent is lighting the candles of the Advent wreath, or Advent Crown. The wreath is traditionally made from evergreens and with four candles, often coloured violet and/or rose, or sometimes a fifth white one to act as the 'Christ candle', placed around it. One candle is lit each Sunday of Advent, and the fifth on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. This takes place in both homes & churches, the light increasing amongst us each week until the Sun & the Son are reborn at Midwinter. Until then we trust and we hope, as our ancestors have before us for thousands upon thousands of years.

The concept of the Advent Crown originated with 16th Century German Lutherans, although the wreath that we would recognise came into being in the 1800s. It seems that Johann Hinrich Wichern, a German Protestant pastor who worked with the urban poor, invented the Advent wreath as a way to reassure the children at his mission school that Christmas was indeed coming, and so encouraging not to ask for a progress report every day. This first wreath was made from an old cartwheel, turned on its side and with 20 small red and 4 large white candles around the rim. Each day a red candle would be lit, and each Sunday a white one. This evolved into the smaller wreaths with five candles that we know today.

The candles symbolise the increase of the light in the world but each also has its own individual meaning, which are Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. There are variations on the theme, such as Faith, Prepare, Joy, and Love, or Prophets, Angels, Shepherds, and Magi. I read today, shared by author and preacher Sarah Bessey, of another theme from the ancient order of Carmelite nuns, who are dedicated to lives of contemplative prayer & who focus in Advent on Waiting, Accepting, Journeying, and Birth. This feels like a more gentle, slower movement towards the light, one which embraces the dark and the unknowing.

But, what of the more familiar theme for the first week of Advent, that of Hope? I know that many are losing, or have lost, hope in these times. Daily I hear about something which threatens to dim the stars, tumble me into a darkness without seeds. I sit with that, because even that darkness calls for attention, and then I take a deep breath and fall into hope once more. It came to me some time ago that to hope is one of our most sacred tasks; Love pervades everything, always, but hope is a spark that can be blown out, or allowed to die. I once read of humans being 'the ones who carry ochre', but we are also the ones who kindle hope. Refusing to enter the darkness where hope has gone cold prevents our longing to relight the flame of hope. Instead, we warm ourselves on shallow, surface things; materialism, greed, power. For the want of a still small point of light.

I have more to say about kindling hope, and how to nurture that newborn flame in ourselves and the world around us, but for now I will end with a quote from American writer Rebecca Solnit.

"Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the Earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal...to hope is to give yourself to the future, and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable."

And so, we kindle the flame on the first candle of our Advent Crown for Hope. The world isn't filled with light, not yet and maybe not anytime soon. But, for another turning of the year, we commit ourselves to the future, and here is a still small point for us to focus on. Let's help one another keep it shining in the dark.


References:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_wreath

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/prehistoric-use-of-ochre-can-tell-us-about-the-evolution-of-humans

Sarah Bessey ~

https://sarahbessey.com

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5iYffCBaWr/?igshid=3e36r4mnnyln

Rebecca Solnit ~

http://rebeccasolnit.net