christmas...

Christmas is about God and Jesus.

I've been a lot closer to God recently, but not in a Christmas centred way. It's been kind of a one-sided friendship, if God were one of my girfriends he'd be saying something along the lines "yo, listen up girl, i'm sick and tired of always dealing with your problems. When we gonna deal with my problems? Hello, the anniversary of the birth of my only son coming right atcha and all you can think about is problems with your goddamn boyfriend??".

I'm glad God isn't my girlfriend. I'm also glad none of the girlfriends I do have are blunt enough to ever give me that much of a going over, although I probably deserve one by now. The point is, despite showing up at midnight mass and going over the Bethlehem and manger bit in the gospels, and singing along very loudly to Songs of Praise, I feel, yet again, like I've missed the point. Completely. I haven't even got the wrong point, I haven't found any point at all.

Christmas is not about presents. Has my Christmas been about presents?
Didn't get to buy as many as I wanted, didn't receive as many as I would've liked. Didn't have much fun choosing and wrapping, on account of the lack of time (I did my Christmas shopping in 40 minutes on the 24th December, beat that). Still have loads of presents to buy, I'm gonna have to hand them out at New Year's and try to make a gimmick out of it. Not really feeling the presents this year.

Has my Christmas been about commercialism? Yeah right. I had to break into the Christmas money that my Grandma left me from beyond the grave (which was upsetting and creepy) just to get presents for my parents. I didn't even get a kick out of yelling about the pimping Regent Street lights (The Incredibles? What in the name of all that is good and pure do The Incredibles have to do with Christmas?). I haven't even enjoyed spending, which is unlike me. Not even anti-commercialism has lit the fire this year.

So what's the point of my Christmas been? Here's the thing, I know the inevitable conclusion is that Christmas is about God, but it's just not. It never has been, I can honestly say that Christmas is about as un-spiritual as my year gets. I am not a hypocrite, or at least I spend a distressing amount of time trying (and often failing) not to be, so I'm not even gonna pretend to have found the real meaning of this time of year. There is no way I can hold my head high and claim that at the most materialistic and greedy point of my calendar, I'm celebrating a religious event, because I'm not. I'm really not.

I celebrate God in the summer, and I thank God for the beauty of the world in the autumn and the spring, and in the winter I draw near him and immerse myself in him ready to re-evaluate myself and my commitment to him ready for the new year. At Easter I think about the sacrifice, not the chocolate. But at Christmas? I read my bible as much as I can and pray to show that I am trying to make this about God, and I hope he appreciates it, but the truth is I really don't know what it is I'm supposed to be doing, what big lesson I'm supposed to be re-learning each year.

There's nothing new year. My life as a Christian is pretty much about this feeling. The feeling being "OK, I don't know what I'm supposed to do or feel, I don't know what everyone else is doing or feeling so I'm just gonna do what I can and hope to figure it out later". I've figured out that this isn't a bad thing. Most Christians are making it up as they go along, in fact, everyone is. Christians, non-Christians, atheists, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims... We're all kind of figuring it out as we do it, hoping that we're getting it right, or at least not getting it too wrong.

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Nature's incredible and unpredictable force (as the man on the news put it) has struck again.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4125481.stm

Bbc.co.uk says about 7,000 people in South East Asia are feared dead, ITV news reckoned about 10,000. When the numbers get that big, it's difficult to comprehend the actual scale of what's happened. 10,000 people is my college, plus Yateley School and its Sixth Form, plus Frogmore and its Sixth Form... 10,000 people is almost all the delegates at a Soul Survivor conference. It's still just a very big number, 10,000 individual and unique people, with feelings and emotions and histories and they're all just gone and we can't even begin to understand it.

It's weird, weird. Those of you who are of the praying persuasion, tell your friends.