Category: love life live advent

Love Life Live Advent – 22nd December – Say Sorry

love life live advent

Today’s action: What do you need to say sorry for, or to let go of before Christmas? Give it to God.

Christmas is a time when we sing of ‘Peace on earth’ but can often experience the opposite – busyness, worry about money, and visits from relatives can all create tension and make tempers run high, just at a time when we most desire peace of heart and mind.

If there’s someone you really need to say sorry to, think about how best to do it.  Sometimes a handwritten letter goes a long way, sometimes a face to face apology is what’s needed.  Giving a gift, especially something home-made that needed some time and effort, can be a powerfully helpful part making peace with someone.

Often, though, it’s just a general sense that time has left us a bit worn and scuffed, or simply need to make peace with ourselves about the past year.  It can help to do something (as well as think it) to let go of any regrets.  Why not try one of these ideas?

  • On a cold day, you can breathe onto a window pane, and then write in the condensation. Try writing something down that you want to leave behind, then as you give your thoughts to God, wipe it off and spend a moment finding something beautiful in what you can see out of the window.
  • Write down your regret on a small piece of paper and (very carefully) burn it in a candle flame as you offer your thoughts to God. Spend a moment enjoying the warmth and light of the candle flame.
  • Take an object that looks as if it doesn’t have much left to offer (a dead twig, a small screwed up ball of paper etc, a dried up leaf), and give it a new lease of life by spraying it gold – attach a loop of thread to it and hang it on your tree – as you do so, offer yourself to God with all your faults and failings as well as all your gifts, and ask him to do something wonderful with you this year.
  • Hold a shiny Christmas tree bauble in your hand, so that you can see your face reflected in it. Think about what you see – the things about yourself that make you happy, and the things you’d like to change. As you look at your own reflection, ask God to help you see yourself as he sees you.

Love Life Live Advent – 20th December – look at a candle flame

advent, love life live advent

advent calendar candleMy daughter was baptised on 31st October (to be fair, it was a Sunday that year, and we were celebrating All Saints) so every year her lovely godparents give her (and us) something to do during Advent. Often it is one of those lovely candles that you light every evening, burning about a quarter of an inch of it while you eat your dinner. I am particularly impressed that they managed to post the candle to us and that it arrived in one piece, having traveled several thousand miles to do so!

It’s a lovely tradition, and we’ve done rather better with it this year than last; because I am not working in the evenings, we have eaten a lot more meals together as a family, and we’ve shared this beautiful candle flame every night.  It’s generated some lovely questions from the children about what all the ‘name of Jesus’ actually mean.  Some they know well (Good Shepherd, Prince of Peace) while some are less familiar (Lion of Judah). There is always plea, ‘Can I strike the match to light it this time?’ and a firm, parental, ‘no’; there is also a brief, generally good-natured tussle about who will get to blow it out.

But mostly we love the flame. We love how it reminds us that it’s Advent, and that it’s special. We love how lighting a candle makes our dinners feel special, even if we’re eating mash and beans. We even bought it a candle stick from the thrift store, so that the light from the flame could be reflected by the shiny brass.

And we love how when we blow it out, the smoke twists and swirls to fill the room, and yet just stops short of setting the alarm off.

A candle means all these things.  Enjoy one today – and every day until the Light of Christ comes into the world.

Love Life Live Advent – 15th December – poems & pictures

advent, children's ministry, christmas, love life live advent, poems

We had a little time left over after we finished our Jesse Tree at children’s chapel on Sunday morning, so we got ahead and did some work on the task of drawing some pictures for the Christmas story for today’s task. christmas pictures
There were quite a lot of angels (because we’d just made the angel bauble for our Jesse Tree) but also the odd other item from the tree – Noah and his rainbow are there, as is a heart/flower combination representing Mary, and a wonderfully complex set of heart symbols for different ideas about God from one of our six year olds!

2013-03-08 00.29.35I was too busy picking up pens and pairs of scissors to draw a picture at children’s chapel, so here’s one I made earlier. It’s acrylic paint on canvas, and if you squint a little it’s the Holy Family. Mostly the colours are about the love that exists between the three figures, and that seems to me to be at the heart of Christmas.

For completeness’ sake, here is a poem that I wrote for Christmas last year – it’s really a sermon I wrote (which was based on the lovely Christmas collect that talks about heaven touching earth) then condensed into a sonnet!

Prophetic visions since the world began
(so far before salvation’s human birth)
would speak of God’s tremendous loving plan
for heav’n to touch the long-estrangèd earth.
Those ancient words at last began to be
in flesh and skin and bone and blood unfurled
In maiden womb and half-made family –
so heaven stooped to touch a fallen world.
Amongst the stable beasts behind the inn,
the baby’s eyes saw first a loving mother;
even though their world was full of sin,
yet heav’n touched earth for each in one another.
Now we cry for peace, goodwill to men,
and for God’s heaven to touch his earth again.

@OurCofE asked us for our favourite carols, and now the results are in!

advent, christmas, love life live advent

With huge thanks to the fabulous Paula Gooder, who was tweeting as @OurCofE this week, for instigating this entirely unofficial vote, and for compiling the results for us, here is the final ranking – a few predictable choices, but some lovely surprise inclusions too.

The voting rules were simple: there were no rules! People could nominate as many carols as they liked, favourited tweets were counted too, and Paula even allowed quite a bit of leeway when it came to defining what could count as a carol. Advent hymns are in, and only ‘Santa Claus is coming to town’ failed to meet the not-very-strict criteria! Enjoy…

1. In the top spot was the wonderful In the bleak midwinter, with a whopping 27 nominations. The words are by Christina Rosetti, and this is a Christmas that those of us who live in her native England will recognise: the snow may be unbiblical, but it helps those of us who dream of a white Christmas to become part of the Christmas story, to feel that it is also our story. The survey didn’t specify a particular tune, so although congregations find it easier to sing the tune by Gustav Holst, choral singers will always vote for the setting by Harold Darke.

2. The second spot fell to Of the Father’s love begotten, with 23 votes (if you’re not familiar with this one, you can hear it as sung on Songs of Praise in 1997!). The words are by the great fifth century Roman poet Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, and were translated into English by J M Neale in the 19th Century. If hymns were wine and readings were food, this is a good wine that would be recommended with a main course of John 1.1-14.

3. At number 3 was It Came upon the Midnight Clear, with 19 votes. It was written in 1849 by a Unitarian pastor from Massachussetts, Edmund Sears. Many who nominated this carol did so for the hope it brings of an ever-present angelic song in the midst of human sin and conflict.

=4. Hark! The herald angels sing was always going to make the top ten. With harmonies by Mendelssohn, and words by Charles Wesley, what’s not to like? Surprisingly, though, our number four carols only received 11 nominations.

=4. In equal fourth place was O Holy Night. Much recorded, variously arranged, well sung it delivers a well-aimed shiver down all but the hardiest of spines.

The best of the rest… here’s the full list:

With 9 nominations:
Silent Night – always popular, but this year with special significance during the WW1 centenery.

With 8 nominations:
O Come all ye faithful – many people mentioned the glorious last verse that we can only sing on Christmas day!
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

With 6 nominations:
Joy to the World
The Angel Gabriel
O Little Town of Bethlehem

With 5 nominations:
Jesus Christ the Apple Tree (we’re assuming it’s the Elizabeth Poston version)

With 4 nomination:
Bethlehem Down (with fabulous music by Peter Warlock)
Coventry Carol

With 3 nominations:
Fairy Tale in New York
God Rest ye merry, Gentlemen
Hills of the North Rejoice
I saw three ships
In Dulci Jubilo
Let all mortal flesh keep silent
Once in Royal David’s City

With 2 nominations:
A spotless Rose
Angels from the realms of glory
Candlelight Carol
Christians awake
The Three Kings (Peter Cornelius)
Whence is this Stupendous Stranger
While Shepherds Watched their Flocks

And finally with just 1 nomination each:
A Great and Mighty Wonder
Away in a Manger
Born in the Night Mary’s Child
Christ Be our Light (Bernadette Farrell)
Glorious Light (Krystyn Getty et al)
Good King Wenceslas
Hee Haw Hee Haw doesn’t anybody care?
Huron Carol
Infant Holy
Lo He comes with Clouds Descending
Make Way for Christmas (Kendrick)
Personent Hodie
Quelle est cette odeur
Ring out the Bells at Christmas time
Shepherds Farewell
Sussex Carol
The First Noel
The Silver Stars
This is the Truth sent from Above
Virgin Mary had a Baby Boy
Wake O Wake with Tidings Thrilling
We Three Kings
What Sweeter Music (Rutter)
When Love Came down to Earth
Come and join the celebration

My take on the list? There are quite a few carols that we sing a lot, that really didn’t get that many nominations (Away in a manger springs to mind), and others that were really well supported but don’t seem to make it into our carol services as often as they deserve (Of the Father’s love begotten). What do you think?  Was your favourite carol missing from the list, or under-appreciated? Tell us in a comment!  And more importantly, tell us why your chosen carol means so much to you, and what it say about the heart of Christmas.