There are many comings and goings in preparation for the heady days to come within the next few weeks. I expect enthusiasm and excitement will reach fever pitch within the next couple of weeks. No matter that some people positively dislike, if not despise the approaching Festive Season; some may even actively seek to agitate against it, for whatever reasons, personal or otherwise. Nor do we have to be particularly religious, let alone Christian, the pending season will affect all and sundry, directly or indirectly. There is a strong suspicion that the Heady Occasion has acquired a ’Life’ and ’Momentum’ of its own. Even the relevant and topical Music has a distinct character and nature which does not really need any words to articulate its essence. In the prevailing global ’tightening of the purse strings’ - aided and abetted by the ubiquitous scaremongers and doomsday merchants - mums and dads, gramps and grams, all and sundry are getting in there, trying to cope with their resources and stretching them as far as possible. Aye! The Festive Days of Yule are nigh! What will it bring? It occurred to me this past week that all the hustle and bustle, huffing and puffing…the frantic business of what lies ahead…still in the future; all is being done ’By Faith’. There are no guarantees that family reunions will be what we expect them to be; the more I thought about it, the more I realised the obvious, every moment of our lives are lived ’by faith’. Recurring patterns and procedures can be said to be predictable, but even such apparently fixed patterns are vulnerable to the ’unpredictable’. What we do not in preparation for a future event is patently done ’by faith’. There is this unfulfilled promise of what is to be; we might promise ourselves all sorts of things but there can be no absolute guarantee; promises are all made in faith…in ’good faith’. Children in some parts of the world will be writing letters to legendary Father Christmas - whoever he may be; wherever he may be living and, whatsoever we might make of this whole Christmas Event, we might even find ourselves quiet little promises to ourselves, if not to anyone else. The whole of ‘Life’ seems to have this hidden, unspoken agenda of ‘Promise yet to be fulfilled.’ Religious people might find parallels….or signposts…in events and experiences in their distinctive Religious Scriptures; mirrored in their ‘Holy Books’ they will be able to see their own lives. For instance, the Israelite God speaks to His people through Moses, and promises them: “I will lead you to the land which I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham..” It must have been rather tough on those people slaving away under the relentless Egyptian sun, and the merciless hand of their masters, yet Moses was expected to accept this improbable promise of deliverance…. There are obvious parallels in the world today….obvious ones; some not so obvious, none the less as devastatingly illuminating for those who care to see clearly and without bias…. Alas! The confusion, despair and incredulity of those Israelites when they heard that promise of, yet to be fulfilled, deliverance…may even be mirrored in the way we might feel when our own little world appears to be on the verge of collapse, and someone dares to suggest that ‘every dark cloud has a silver lining.
(To be continued)
