What a lovely time of year to begin ministry here in Ketton & Tinwell. The week began with a beautiful candlelit Carol Service in Tinwell, then on Tuesday there was the very joyful Christmas concert performed by the very talented Ketton Community Choir. Yesterday it was a delight to welcome the children of our Church School into St. Mary’s for their end of term service. And, as I write this, there are a number of us planning Ketton’s traditional Carol Service, as well as the Christingle extravaganza, which this year will feature a very unusual Angel!
Advent, particularly, the run-up to Christmas can be a very busy time; this season is also quite intense for different reasons, and whatever we’re doing on the day itself, it can provoke strong memories and emotions within us.
Christmas is a potent mix of memory and emotion, but I think this has always been the case, even on that first Christmas Day when God was discovered within a small and vulnerable child;a God who shares our joys and our sorrows. Some years ago I attempted to convey some of this in a poem, which I called “Mary’s Star”
Don’t all mothers see the divine
within their child?
Mary was no different,
a new life shines as a halo,
the first cry, like Angel song,
born from pain,
this healing presence,
like a star in the pitch of night.
But a star so often dies,
before we see it,
reflected in the heavens.
And Mary wept,
as she saw her own child’s halo fade,
snuffed out by those afraid of light.
Yet, on a clear night,
a star still shines,
and Mary, gazing up into the sky,
can hear the echoes of Angels,
and knows she is
accompanied by the Divine.
God Bless, Revd Dean.