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Well, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself I know, but we go away for Christmas with my family up north tonight and I don’t know how to make a post automatically upload at a prescribed time…
Christmas is almost here – 2 more sleeps in fact, according to my daughter and the children here at work today. There’s not been so much time for reflecting, for resting so far. And yet Christmas is still almost here and I find myself seeking out a quiet space to recall the ancient Christmas story and to rejoice at all it means.
I love Christmas, the songs, candlelight and food with friends and family, giving and receiving. I love the genuine and baffling wonder of the Christmas story.
I’m so glad that for my little family the preparations are almost over. We make our night-journey up the road to the north east of Scotland this evening. I’m hoping for a starlit night, Christmas carols on the ipod, for a journey that no doubt will be in turns quiet and reflective, happy and excited.
Wishing you all peace and joy this Christmas.
About ten days or so ago I was listening to the radio on my way to work. A reporter was talking about the latest financial crisis the economy is facing and discussing with a commentator how this is affecting families. The commentator observed that, although the chancellor is encouraging us to spend (and I guess the cut in VAT was intended to encourage us in this), evidence was showing that in fact most people seemed to be reducing their spending and were thinking much much more carefully about what they needed, as opposed to what they wanted.
On a personal level I also have noticed this to be true. People are deciding not to book that holiday, not to spend beyond what is necessary this Christmas, to choose more thoughtful gifts rather than relying on a proliferation of gifts.
So this got me to thinking. I don’t know that much about economics (can you tell?!) yet even to a casual observer it is clear that if our current economic system is struggling or even collapsing because people cannot afford to spend or choose not to spend, in other words if capitalism is failing, what then? A system based on consumption and spending (based on universal debt perhaps?) cannot succeed when people lack the inclination or the means to spend, and have cottoned on to the futility and vacuousness of buying stuff for the sake of having stuff, no matter what the stuff actually is to them.
So then, what is the economy of God? I have heard this phrase used in sermons, where it is used with the implication that God’s economy is based on love and justice rather than money. But how does God want our world to be constructed? How should we spend our money, and more importantly perhaps, what systems or structures should we sit under to encourage and reflect an economy that really is of God?
It depresses me that I have over the years of my life spent money on tat, because it was there, or on buying a newer, shinier version of the thing that I already have (newer shoes, a more up to date coat, all the usual..). And I’m not even a particularly materialistic person.
So this Christmas we, like so many others, have tried to think more carefully about what we give and who to. We have made some gifts too. We have asked for things we need or would really value. However, I suspect that in the economy of God there would be little room for where a season where giving is so inequitable, where Christmas is both celebrated and dreaded, for a season of spending and not reflecting.
Perhaps this Christmas is going to be the first of many where people find themselves contemplating what Christmas actually is about, if it’s not about seasonal over-consumption and over-spending. And this, more than anything I will ever hear on the news, gives us all hope for 2009.
Peace this Christmas to you all.
Is it just me or is every other person ill just now? For the last ten days my husband has been really unwell with the flu (he’s much better now and went back to work for the first time today), my daughter had a day or two of feeling a bit poorly (although it could have just been too much birthday cake and treats, as she just turned four and has been living on excitement and festivities for that for over a week), and then this week, inevitably perhaps, I also came down with the flu.
I phoned my boss this afternoon to let him know I wouldn’t be in again until next week, and was greeted with hysteria-tinged laughter. Always good to have some sympathy…. well, then he said it was just a reaction to the amount of people who have been off sick recently. I guess that’s a fair point, and it has a big impact in a small organisation like the one I work for. But even amongst my circle of friends so many people have been unwell with one bug or another. I love winter, especially December, but the multitude of bugs about makes for an interesting season. Kleenex, flu rememedies and daytime tv viewing figures must really clean up at this time of year.
I’m curled up on the sofa, having slept all morning and spent the afternoon letting afternoon tv lull me into a semicomatose state.
Hope you’re all feeling a bit more healthy than my family.
There’s a new kid on the block who I commend heartily to you (although I suspect most of my limited readership will have heard this news already…): Fourth Space. It’s a new incarnation of an old blog pro, so you will be guaranteed some good stuff to get you really thinking. I’m very excited!
With that in mind, I’d love to hear about your favourite recent blog discoveries – what do you recommend I check out to broaden my horizons?
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