Advent Thought 10

This little alarm cost me £5 about 20 years ago. Many of the function buttons now demonstrate age - for instance I can only scroll through numbers in one direction. If I wake before it is due to go off and want to disable it then removing and replacing the battery is the quickest way.

It has one major attribute which I like in an alarm. If it does reach the designated time it can be silenced with a smart blow to the top. Being capable of being hit and surviving is an essential feature, in my opinion, not just for an alarm clock but for all humans.

It has a second redeeming quality. It is part of the furniture. I know how to deal with it in the dark.

Recently the Mike Tyson boxing strategy was revisited in the light of the rebirth of Tyson Fury. Tyson (M) said that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

Well, now is the time to wake out of sleep, preferably without being punched in the face or hit over the head. My alarm clock has survived the relentless onslaught of TCMT's visual merchandising of my entire life.

Today's pondering. Style or function? Which cuts the mustard for you?

Advent Thought 20 and Number 21

I was brought up to understand that December 21st was the shortest day. It was some years before I realised that this referred to daylight. I was boasting my superior knowledge to a friend, as 7 year olds are prone to do, when it was pointed out to me that all days are the same length and I had to admit that yes, of course they are.

But yesterday was a bit light on light. It was gone 8.00 a.m. before the dawn broke properly and by 4 p.m. it had pretty much gone. Fewer than 8 hours of daylight. It is a story of gentle inprovment from now into the spring. Lovely? Is it?

But does the darkness bother you? I sympathise with those who suffer from SAD (Seasonally Affected Disorder) and have to work to get the serotonin/melatonin balance right. I am an indoors sort of person and thrive in gloom. Huddled in a dark corner is a creative place. Put me in the sunlight for too long and I'll crawl under a stone.

But I wonder if you now feel better in the knowledge that the days are getting longer?

What things, over which you have no control, bring you down? The weather? People being stupid or rude?

This is the world into which the baby we came to know as the Son of God was born. A world over which he had surrendered control. A world in which dark stuff happens. But there is a light. It is human now.

...time's still ticking enough to send hearts all over that cliff
So what place is this?
Not sure I fit

Advent Thought 9 and Number 11

Today is the 11th of December. On the 11th of September I sat down and breathed a deep breath. It was the first day of a three month sabbatical.

Thirteen weeks later it is over and I am back on duty. I was wise enough to leave my diary clear today so it has been a gradual dip in the ministry water.

Mainly I have been reading and archiving emails but also catching up on what has been going on. The phone has rung again. The undertakers were the second call so people have carried on needing to be buried.

I also went to the gym because I usually do that on a Monday. And one person I know said 'I thought you were supposed to be back at work'. He had a twinkle in his eye. I think.

So today is the tale of two 11s. But the interesting thought is that, on the one hand, thirteen weeks have raced by. And on the other it has been a slow autumn of reading and writing by contrast with which today is a blur and tomorrow, which has appointments in it, will feel like the merry-go-round once again.

Standing in the shadows
Where the in crowd meet

Think of your time. Which bits drag and which bits rush by? And is Advent a long or short wait?

Advent Thought 2 and Number 27

Do you have favourite numbers? Do you like 25 because it makes you think of Christmas? 

I was born on the 27th. Has it made any difference to the way I see the world? I find that an interesting question. Whenever the number 27 comes up in conversation I am reminded of my birthday. But has it meant, for instance, a willingness to buy products that are over-priced at £27? I'm not sure I can say.

I have lived at numbers:

107 for 22 years
11 for 4 years
1 for 3 years
3 for 4 years
16 for 5 years
82 for 14 years
29 for 11 years and counting

When those numbers crop up do I treat them more favourably than I should?

Adjectives add mood. It was a day. What sort of day? A very grey day. Now we have a picture. It was December 4th, a very grey day. Feels like we now have precision.

If we treat numbers merely as adjectives we will have our favourites and that might cost us.

'I'm counting out time,
Got the whole thing down by numbers.'

Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol this morning, trying to link several storylines from the show which are in the long paragraph towards the end:

Jesus was out of the house early to pray. Gone before the sun was up. His companions came searching. 'Everyone is looking for you' they said.

They were. There were probably queues in his village of sick people needing healing.

How did Jesus respond?

'Sorry fellers, I needed some head space?'

'Gosh where does the time go?'

'OK, let's go to work.'

None of the above.

I was chatting to someone yesterday who tends to get too busy. I'll call him John. John works and plays hard. John is more concerned with whether a challenge is interesting than whether he has time to do it.

By the end of the conversation John was already asking if there were other bits of ministry with which I needed help. I avoided the temptation to say 'All of them'.

Whether raising money for somebody else's cancer cure, spending a night sleeping in a crane or even collecting cuff-links the common link is time. It takes time to do these things. No-one ever got good at anything without giving over a chunk of time to it. Specialists are busy. The generous-hearted are busy. I would wager those who holiday on a crane next to a lively harbour-side are probably busy too. And our dam-buster war-heroes had to drop every previous priority and make their new expertise - the enemy.

So what did Jesus say? He said the remarkable, and shocking, 'Let's go somewhere else'. In Mark's Gospel, where we find this story, he prioritises preaching over healing saying, 'That is why I have come'.

Sporting expertise or built up collections have an opportunity cost. What wasn't done in order to do the thing that was.

Now. What are you here for?

It's When?

Where am I? A reasonable question if you've just been dropped off by the kidnappers and left to make your way home.

Who am I? OK, you have amnesia. That blow to the head was worse than we thought.

Why am I? Good theological theme for the season.

The season? Ah yes. Glad you asked. The pre-Christmas season formerly known as Advent. By about now I start to be bothered by this final problem more than the others. When am I?

Last year I got excited by Paula Gooder's observation that in Advent you looked forward to the past and remembered the future. That statement alone was a time-whirl.

What happens to me about now is that my whenabouts in the week goes awol.

Its not quite the same for some. Teachers seem to be either on or off and are currently off. Retail staff are now permanently on and walk around with a glazed expression when someone, for instance, announces an extra Bank Holiday. A Bank what? Sorry, you've lost me there, they say.

We all operate with fixed points. Even shift-workers with odd patterns of work/rest seem to have ways of making their lives revolve around something. Seven on, two off, five on, three off or some similar mantra.

Now my pattern is to work hard and long Monday to Thursday, to keep Friday free from duties, to do what ever comes up on Saturday but not to go looking for work and to be fit and well for Sunday as a day of worship and of work.

This week there are things to do on Friday, Christmas Eve, culminating in an important preach at an hour of my usual day off when I would normally be asleep. Then Christmas Day, which always feels like a Sunday for me, although I have no duties after the morning communion. Sunday 26th is the day after Christmas but won't feel like a Sunday because my own church community has decided not to meet and Mrs Mustard will be heading of to work at 6.00 a.m. to supervise retail sales in various outlets. Then Monday 27th is a Bank Holiday, the family are visiting and it will feel Sundayish again. The rest of the week will be out of kilter and how much work I do will very much depend on circumstances. The New Year weekend will again feel weird and the Monday after will be another Bank Holiday so the back-to-normal Tuesday 4th will feel like a Monday. I doubt very much if I will know when I am until Monday 10th January.

This is neither a rant nor a moan. Merely an observation. Your clergy will be struggling to know when it is.

A better idea for May 4th than the Star Wars joke

Congratulations to all you people who didn't simply notice or anticipate the time but stayed up for it too. I hope you enjoyed being awake at two minutes and three seconds past one on the fourth of the fifth two thousand and six. Remember to tell your grandchildren (I believe that's still the done thing).

For me, although the time of my going to bed is getting nearer and nearer to the time Lizzie gets up (refitting shops in Wokingham and Salisbury in the same fortnight); I was in the land of nod.

Time

In order to establish the length of any DIY task one should think of a reasonable time, double it and inflate it to the next unit of measurement. So a job that looks as if it will take five minutes will take 10 hours, a half day job will take one week and a two week job shouldn't be attempted as you don't get enough annual leave.

So to the electricians at Cargo Didcot. This has become my favourite soap of the moment. Liz returned to tell me about it over supper, resplendent in her black Cargo polo shirt (small although they build small people big in wherever it was made) and wondering what to do with all her business suits now this is the company uniform.

They (the electricians, do keep up) said on Monday night that they needed 45 minutes the next day. They took all day and said they needed a couple of hours the next day (Wednesday). Yesterday I told you they were still on site at 7pm. They left at 11pm promising to return at 8.30am today (opening day) in case of emergencies (which they guaranteed there wouldn't be). They showed up at 11am, the shop having opened with only half the lights working.

Later in the day the goods lift failed. Liz: 'It seemed fair as it was the only thing that hadn't broken down yet.' No news as to whether this was an electrical fault or not. 'There are only two of us in this whole project who have done our jobs properly.' In order to do her job properly Liz has done 66 hours so far this week with a seven hour day (a half-day) to go.

Now to our Holiday Club. It is being run by John, a semi-retired project manager in the construction business. It is the only Holiday Club I have ever been to where we are required to synchonise our watches at the start of the day. John had a £140 million business target per year and did a lot of work for the Millennium Dome. You will recall that the Dome came in on time even though there were budget problems and was a fantastic feat of architecture and construction. Hail John. A Holiday Club run to the same precision (but £2.50 a head) is a joy to be part of. An absolute joy. It doesn't matter what sort of a project it is, people love being well led by a hard-working leader. We work hard in response. I'll even forgive him for the theme song Amarillo thing. With five minutes to go before the children were due to go home John walked across the back of the church holding a cardboard sign saying '5 minutes'. He did the same with a 1 minute sign precisely 4 minutes later.

In Kenya, Bob arrived two hours late to preach at a wedding but still arrived two hours before the bride and groom. Our church is expecting a Kenyan Careforce volunteer this month. Maybe he'll be here in two years.

Time is not a thing I care for very much. I intend to try and ignore it more and more without becoming rude.