Christmas - my favourite Pagan Festival

Yes, I know Jesus was not born in midwinter, the wise men turned up weeks after the birth and that it was a common thing for Mangers to double as cradles. No, there was no donkey and there was no snow and “no room at the inn” just means the spare bedroom was already taken.

Even worse, Christmas is a hybrid of Nordic and Roman Pagan festivities and nearly all the colourful bits and pieces from mulled wine to Christmas trees have a wiffy background.

Censorious legalists will have nothing to do with it. Quite right too. What’s the point of being a self-righteous prig if no one notices?

Real Christianity is something of a chameleon. It is not defined by cultural separation but by the strange entry of a new life into every believer. It subverts and transforms the blessed sinner from the inside out beginning with the miracle of regeneration, continuing in the discipline of repentance and ending in the Resurrection to come. A quiet beginning and thunderous fulfilment. Like a baby born in a Jerusalem suburb who will call all humanity to Judgement.

Societies are not so much overturned as subverted by joy and hope. There is not - and can not be - a true Christendom until The Kingdom of Christ comes in it’s fulness. So enjoy the party.

In the meantime, may the Father of Christ bless you in your celebrations rather than that sad old fraud, Father Christmas.

Whatever you do, don’t overtake!

There is a narrow road with cars parked on both sides near my house. Buses and lorries often try to thread their way through and hold-ups are frequent. Sometimes careless drivers get stuck half way along the 200 yard “gauntlett” stretch facing a vehicle attempting to come the other way. The resulting standoff can last several minutes as cars queue up behind in both directions.

The result is fuming exhausts and even more fuming drivers while smirking pedestrians try not to show too much amusement at the resulting display of fallen human nature.

Yesterday, I pulled into a gap to let a delivery van pass in the opposite direction and a driver (gender unspecified to avoid prosecution) selfishly overtook me and blocked the way to oncoming traffic. I leapt out and tried to share a few choice insights about road etiquette but she pressed the central locking and stared straight ahead.

She is doubtless convinced she escaped death from road rage by a whisker and that my shapeless anorak was shielding at least a murderous axe or possibly a suicide bomb belt. My wayward beard may give the impression that I am a fanatical Jihadist after all.

Yes folks, overtaking in London can seem dangerous. Overtaking in Baghdad, however, is lethal. There was a news report about six months ago about a carful of men being shot up by US troops as they overtook them. Ironically, they were going home from a funeral but they all died because the nervous Americans thought they might be lining up for an attack. I was reminded of this story by this article on the BBC site.

So little real news is coming out of Iraq now and we have to thank one brave Iraqi reporter for this story. If there is one thing more dangerous than overtaking in Iraq it is truth telling.