The Antidote (part 1)

December can be a particularly depressing time to live in Birmingham city centre. I realise this is not exactly a cheery upbeat beginning to a blogpost, sorry. But December in Birmingham city centre, even more so than the rest of the year, becomes a frenzy of consumerist excess which seems to have little (for which read absolutely nothing) to do with the forthcoming celebration of Christmas.

It saddens me that the slightly manic hysteria that surrounds Christmas reaches fever pitch so far before the day itself that people are virtually ready to take their Christmas decorations down on boxing day (the shops of course are already doing so on Christmas eve); and that a celebration that should be about innocence and love becomes an excuse for obscene excess and seems to result in so much angst and dischord.

But I'll make a confession: I love Christmas, I really do. I believe this story of the incarnation really matters. It matters because it allows the God I can believe in to exist: a God who is weak and powerless, a God whose own suffering is integral to his identity. A God who is here, in the midst of the mess. And don't get me wrong, I love sparkle and good food and wine and excuses for parties too.

In the midst of all this, then, it isn't always easy to find ways to live the seasons of Advent and Christmas that holds in balance the joy and challenge inherent in this celebration. It remains, though, important to try.

It can be easy to forget what a privilege we have, in our community life here, to regularly make space for silence in our daily life. Our commitment to the rhythm of prayer does, of course, involve sacrifices, but above all it offers an opportunity, day-by-day to pause in the midst of the busyness of life, to rest in the presence of God, to know ourselves to be loved. In Advent, perhaps even more so than usual, it was important to remind myself to appreciate this time.

Each Wednesday morning during Advent, a small group of us gathered outside HSBC, who continue to invest huge sums of money in the arms trade. We met to pray together, to hand out leaflets, to engage with curious passers-by. We stood in the cold to bear witness to the incompatibility of investment in the arms trade with the message of the coming of the prince of peace. It was but a brief interlude each week. It was little more than a gesture. Sometimes, small gestures matter.

After Christmas we found another opportunity to find meaning in the madness of this season. Hot on the heels of the joy of Christmas in the church calendar is the feast of "Holy Innocents": the memorial of the babies of Bethlehem who were killed by Herod in his anger at Jesus' arrival in the world. We spend a couple of days at the Catholic Worker Farm for the Holy Innocents retreat: a chance to reflect with others on this story and what it means for us now. To share together about who are the Herods of our day, and who are the Innocents. To pray for them, and for ourselves as we live out the incarnation in a hurting, violent world. The retreat ended with a vigil outside Northwood Military Base. While it perhaps doesn't sound like a particularly up-beat theme for an end of year retreat, I have consistently found in the Christian peacemaker movement a place of life and vitality, and I was glad to find this space for reflection and companionship, for discussion and for silence, for prayer and for protest.

Christmas is about stars: bright lights that keep on shining when we are wrapped up in darkness; it is about the courage to sing songs of peace on earth however far that seems from the messy reality around us, it is about the promise of new life that comes with the birth of a baby.

So these were some of the pieces in the jigsaw of my efforts to make Advent and Christmas fit more comfortably with my understanding of what this thing is all about.

* There's a part two to follow which picks up the cheerier bits!