Thought for the Day, 21 December 2005

The Right Rev Richard Chartres

Parliament when it was dominated by Puritans once tried to ban Christmas. That was in 1652 and the experiment has not been tried since.

But now the approach is more subtle and there are the usual seasonable moves to sideline Christmas by advancing some version of the pagan festival of Yule and Winterval is a popular name for it.

Sensitivity to other faiths is commonly advanced as a reason for imposing an invisibility cloak on the Christian festival. My friends from other faith communities however take a different line. Don't tell us, they say, that you respect our culture and beliefs when you show so little respect for the culture and beliefs of British Christians.

Of course the word Winterval helps us to understand what is really at stake. Winterval stands for a pause at a time of gloom, a brief chance to get away from ourselves and the daily grind; to divert ourselves with the modern equivalent of mead and ox roasts.

There is a deal of gloom around about the state of the world although I have come to believe this year that pessimism is largely a luxury for rich people. The resilience of the Tsunami survivors I met earlier in the year in Sri Lanka whose possessions had been swept away but who were still hopeful - they have humbled me.

By contrast I met a man recently who said to me, "Bish my philosophy is this - start each day with a smile get it over with."

The spirit of Christmas is very different. For a start real Christmas only starts at midnight on Christmas Eve for people who have looked the dark in the face. There is no real feast without the fast which helps us look at the shadows inside us and around us. It is not a break between bouts of business as usual, but a new hope which comes from beyond ourselves.

The good news is not intended as information to compete with other data in our over busy brain. It is new birth in the soul which comes to those, no matter how old or young, who have the beginner's mind, who see the darkness but do not rush to judgment and who see the wonder with the eyes of a child.