Christmas Beauty

Christmas eve, and i'm sitting in an armchair in a sleepy but strangely homely old farmhouse. Its long past the hour bed calls, yet with the embers of a once roaring fire still giving off a friendly glow in the hearth i find myself wide awake - brimming with inspiration.

The subject in question is beauty and i'm drawn to 1Cor 1:20-25. Even as i'm thinking about this i'm penning a letter explaining a little of it. The hours go by and then, as if to interrupt my thoughts, Molly joins me on the chair with her beautiful face resting on my knee. Anyway the letter is nearly finished now and a bed, complete with hot water bottle, awaits.

I wake early the following morning - its Christmas! Putting on my boots and wrapping up snuggly i set off for a walk with Molly. We are to take the sea route today. An odd crunching underfoot greets me as does a biting westerly wind, it's still dark but we can wait to examine the dusting of snow underfoot and the amazing views while the sun takes a well deserved rest. Walking two miles downhill towards the sea as the light is getting stronger by the minute, but we resist the temptation to look back and spoil the 'surprise' God is prepareing for us. We eventually reach the sea and the wind on the cliff-top almost takes me off my feet but the crashing waves and the seabirds create an angelic chorus. Despite the numbness of my nose and red cheeks I drink in the awesome scenery God has been designing for me to enjoy. The tail of rocks being beaten by infinite armies of white horses. The rugged, yet spectacularly crafted coastline. The calf - no more than 15 miles down the coast - snow covered and shining while in the first rays of the dawn.

As I turn to examine the hills from whence i've come the sight is breathtaking. A sunrise over frosty, snow-capped hills becomes a strange yet beautiful concotion of colour, with the deep green of the forest on my rigth complemented by the light blue of the clear sky containing a golden orb of fantastic proportions giving off a bizzarely pink hue. Yet the brilliant while of teh rugged hillside is the most memorable of them all. We turn once more and drink in the sea view with the bitterly cold wind in my hair. It's worth it for the sun has just been caught by the waves and the glistening water stretches all the way to the mysterious mountains of Mourne, part hidden by haze in the distance.

Molly and I crunch back up the hill through the snow which is blinding by now, and the cold is starting to really tell. Yet only a short walk away the fire will have been rekindled and a spread fit for royalty will cover the table, they will both be very welcome. Despite all the stunning beauty of the past half hour or so and the fireside beauty of the night before, there is something astoundingly beautiful in hot food, a cup of tea and a pair of dry socks.

I am strangely silent over a merry Christmas breakfast. How can words begin to do justice to beauty? All i can do is lift my thoughts up as worship to a soverign creator - obsessed by beauty. His beauty is to be experienced not taught, how can i do him justice? He's chosen to make foolish the wisdom of the world. Somehow this experience of beauty makes me feel more foolish than ever.

How can i share this beauty? I know now it's not good for man to be alone. Why then is church so important? We all share experience of the beauty of God, we can all worship togeather. Much like i cannot do justice to any experience on a cold Christmas morning, we cannot describe the beauty of God. I would have loved to have shared that experience with someone othere than a dog, yet we share an experience of the deepest beauty of all: of the faithfulness, justice, holiness, mercy and love of God. This is where our unity is . Its not about doctrines or methodologies but about beauty.

Away from home?

Many have found that the awesome sight of the star-studded heavens envoke a sense of wonder, and awareness of trancsendence, that is charged with spiritual significance. Yet the distant shimmering of stars does not itself create this sense of longing; it merely exposes what is already there. They are catalysts for our spiritual insights, revealing our emptiness and compelling us to ask whether and how this void might be filled.

Might our true origins and destiny somehow lie beyond those stars? Might there not be a homeland, from which we secretly long to return? Might not our accumulation of discontentment and disillusionment with out present existance be a pointer to another land where our true destiny lies and which is able to make its presence felt now in this haunting way?

Suppose that this is not where we are meant to be but that a better land is at hand? We dont belong here. We have somehow lost our way. Would not this make our present existance both strange and splendid? Strange, because it is not where our true destiny lies; splendid because it points ahead to where that real hope might be found. The beauty of the night skies or a glorious sunset are important pointers to the origins and the ultimate fulfilment of our heart's deepest desires But if we mistake the signpost for what is signposted, we will attach our hopes and longings to lesser goals, which cannot finally quench our thirst for meaning.

A non-Christian's view on Evangelism

The New testament offers a picture: a God who does not sound at all vague to me. He sent his Son to Earth. He has distinct plans for each of us personally and can communicate directly with us. We are capable of forming a direct relationship, individually, with him, and are commanded to try. We are told this can be done only through his Son. And we are offered the prospect of eternal life - an afterlife in happy, blissful or glorious circumstances - if we live this life in a certain manner.

Friends if i believed that, or even a tenth of that, how could i care which version of the prayer book was being used? I would drop my job, sell my house, throw away my possessions, leave my acquaintances and set out into the world burning with desire to know more and when i found out more, to act upon it and tell others.

How is it possible to be indifferent to the possibility, if one believes it to be a possibility , that a being of this order makes demands of this order upon you or me, and that in 30, 20, 10 years -perhaps tomorrow - we shall be taken from this life and ushered into a new one whose nature will depend on our obedience, now, to His will? Far from being puzzled that the Mormons or JW's should knock on my door, i am unable to understand how anyone who believed that what is written in the Bible could choose to spend his waking hours in any other endeavour.

(written by Christian Sceptic - Matthew Parris)

His theology may not be entirely accurate, but I'm convinced that the rebuke is an indictment on all Christians - most especially me.