Crockham Hill October 2024 Newsletter - Flipbook - Page 13
Downsizing for Christmas!
Stephen Mitchell
So, already, we are about to celebrate Christmas in the home we bought
for our attempt to retire (for the second time).
A number of things can9t be the same as they used to be in Edenbridge
Vicarage. There9s no room for a full-sized tree because there9s too much
junk still lying about, left over from the move. We have a nicer, more
traditional, Father Christmas-type fireplace, but no actual chimney here for
the old boy to shimmy down. Never mind. Nor do we have, nor do we now
need, all the strings draped round the Vicarage for suspending the rain
forest of cards there used to be. I no longer need to force myself out of bed
to do an 8 o9clock service, having seemingly climbed into said bed such a
short time after Midnight Mass. Come to think of it, I no longer need to be
at Midnight Mass either! This year I will be with you lot at 10 o9clock on
Christmas Day 3 aren9t you the lucky ones (nay-sayers will be aware that
other mid-morning services are available elsewhere)?
Christmas isn9t usually associated in the minds of most of us with downsizing, cutting back, or going smaller scale. At least, not until we grow older
and find we don9t want or need so much 8stuff9.
8Change and decay9? I don9t think so. If moving house tells you anything, it
is that, after a while, 8stuff9 becomes a burden. What do we do with it all?
Why has my local Oxfam shop closed down just when I need it most? They
saw me coming, that9s why. Having less of this or that somehow brings a
new freedom.
At Christmas we celebrate Christ9s incarnation; that is, His becoming man;
becoming what He wasn9t. We think of Christ laying aside his heavenly
glory, giving up so much for us. But at the same time, we might also think
about his new freedom; to be alongside and within His creation, sharing
the human experience in a way only made possible by His setting aside so
much.
Christmas isn9t just about the little baby in a manger, and a stable, and
those bits which are, sometimes, pretty well all that many people
remember about the Christianity they learned at mother9s knee. It serves
as an opener for the whole drama of Jesus9 life, death and resurrection; a
drama we recall not just at Christmas, but every week throughout the
Christian year, as we follow the life of the Son of God who laid aside such
a very great deal for the sake of us all.
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