Christmas

This picture is one of the pages of scrawl that I made for Christmas Day: nothing in it made it into the final edit. It took a long time to put what I did together, but the space to think, write, pray and wrestle with my demons was worth it: to me at least.

Overall, it was a lovely experience: I used to be minister at the local chapel and I reckon I’ve led the service on 19 out of the last 20 Christmases. The preparation takes longer than it used to do; my work is fulfilling, but I often feel drained by the pressures of it by the evening. There’s something else: I’m aware that over the years I’ve used too many words; paradoxically leaving out waffle makes preparation harder.

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‘Do you ever doubt?’

‘Yes’. Actually, at this point I’m stifling the urge to say ‘F@*%, yes’, but without so many squiggles…

When I preached Sunday by Sunday, it was a kind of therapy: I was wrestling with doubts and I didn’t always manage to subdue them,

My week had a kind of rhythm: first thing every day, I’d spend at least an hour reading, praying, thinking about Sunday and then tended to inform my week in a good way. If an idea came quickly, I’d usually discard it just as quickly: life is complex and I’d rather mine for treasure than come up with the first cliché I’d found, although that didn’t stop me using cliches. I still cringe at some of the things that I said.

I once heard a nearly retired minister say ‘I gave them what they wanted’ after preaching somewhere. It jarred with me: I never wanted to do that and I wanted to be ‘authentic’- that’s in italics as the word is now used to cover many things that have little to do with authenticity. 

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It was Hemmingway who said ‘There’s nothing to writing: all you do is sit down at a type writer and open a vein’. I always felt the same about preaching, even though I now find it fairly easy to stand up in public and speak on almost anything at a few minutes notice. I find the act of preaching to be much more emotionally and physically draining than acting in amdrams: I’m not playing a role. I don’t like to talk about any comments that I’ve received: especially on social media: that feels somehow false.

I doubt the form : at least in the sense of the ‘will to power’ as it was in the past , although TED talks have borrowed the idea of a 10-20 minute talk, albeit in a more confessional or conversational style. I now attempt this way of communicating.

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I’ve made it a point: especially in the last few years, never to talk in public about what people have said to me, whether good or bad about responses to what I’ve talked about: I reckon I’ve received my reward (or rebuke) there and then. I confess that in the past amongst groups of preachers I have done, but it feels somehow ‘hollow’ & boastful-akin to groups of men talking about their sexual prowess. It’s one of the many reasons why I’m unsure of things like ‘Preacher of the Year’ contests: the ‘audience’ isn’t my peers, but the group of people who happen to be there to listen and someone much bigger than that… If you can speak in public, in whatever context, the seduction to your ego is huge: I like it and dislike it at the same time.

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In the last few years at least, I’ve attempted to ‘preach’ to myself and not imagine that I have any claims or superiority over anyone who might be listening: this is an ongoing battle. On Christmas Day I ended with this from an album that a friend put me on to (‘Blood oranges in the snow’ Over the Rhine). The world weary tone of someone who has lived the faith, struggles with it but still – just- hopes spoke to me:-

‘Cause I’ve committed every sin
And each one leaves a different scar
It’s just the world I’m livin’ in
And I could use a guiding star

I hope that I can still believe
The Christ child holds a gift for me
Am I able to receive
Peace on earth this Christmas?’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csNuJngFftE

Happy 7th day of Christmas.