I’m sure that many of you will have noticed that Christmas seems to hit the shelves on 1st November, as soon as the Halloween chocolates, pumpkins, and costumes have had their day. As someone who ends up doing their present buying at about 3.30pm on the 23rd December, I get a slight shiver up my spine when Christmas services are being planned and organised before the clocks have gone back. Of course, it pays to be organised – I tell myself this every year about 10 minutes in to my very late present shopping, as I realise that everyone else who has left it to the last minute has got there before me – but sometimes we can get so caught up in what the future holds that we forget to focus on the present.
This week, I was reminded of the line by the poet Robert Burns that ‘the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.’ I think that’s even more so the case with church mice – the overwhelming majority of the work that clergy do on a day-to-day basis is responding and reacting to whatever comes your way, whether that’s in person, or through an email. A lot of the time, that makes it very difficult to actually focus properly on the thing in front of you – church mice, it seems, are constantly chasing their tails.
Christmas is a time of the year where most of us are afforded the rare ability to stop much of the business of our lives, and to enjoy time spent with family and friends. It is a time of relaxation, procrastination, and probably a fair bit of intoxication. And even though Christmas is a very busy time for our churches, it is the sort of busyness that doesn’t seem daunting – the carol services, midnight masses, and Christmas morning gatherings which will take place in all of our churches across this festive period are a wonderful opportunity for us all to come together, in those traditional and familiar settings, and take the chance to enjoy the here and now, rather than worry about what might be to come.
The ability and invitation to live in a state of peace, free from worry, is at the heart of the Christian message – ‘do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself’, Jesus tell us in Matthew’s gospel. In a world that is so busy and complicated, where our attention is always draw this way and that, and we are endlessly encouraged to compare ourselves and our lives to others, it is Jesus Christ who tells us that ‘my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’
So, as we prepare for a time of celebration, gathering with friends and family, of feasting and of living off turkey leftovers until New Year, I would encourage you to try to take the time to appreciate the restful and calmer parts of what can be a busy time of year. All of our churches are open during the day for you to come in and enjoy a time of peace and quiet, and details of our services and events taking place this month are printed overleaf. May I wish you all a very merry Christmas, full of peace, joy, and goodwill.

David Howell