Maggi Dawn » advent

naughty or nice?

maggi dawn — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:17:52 +0000

Today, 6th December, is the feast of St Nicholas of Myra (AKA Sinta Klaus, Santa Claus, Father Christmas et al), and in many countries shoes or socks are left out, not on Dec 24th as in England, but on the evening of Dec 5th.

But Ekklesia reports that the spirit of christmas was somewhat lacking on Friday, when Santa was turned away from a visit to the children of those held in detention centre Yarl’s Wood:

The police were called on the patron saint of children and the imprisoned today, as he tried to deliver Christmas gifts to children at a detention centre.

The inspiration for the modern day Father Christmas, St Nicholas of Myra, was turned away at the gate of the Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire when he tried to deliver presents to the children locked up inside for administrative purposes.

Jolly Old St Nick brought with him £300 worth of gifts donated by several London churches for the estimated 35 children currently detained.

Dressed in a red robe, long white beard, and a bishop’s mitre and crook, and accompanied by the Rev Professor Nicholas Sagovsky, Canon Theologian at Westminster Abbey, they hoped to spread some St Nicholastide cheer among the children of migrants detained there.

The atmosphere became rather less jolly when the Home Office authorities who run Yarl’s Wood refused permission for St Nicholas to enter the Centre to distribute the gifts to the children.

Despite the authorities having agreed to accept the gifts, St Nicholas was met at the gates by a group of unidentified security guards who barred his entry and ordered him to leave the area.

They later called the police as St Nicholas blessed the gifts. The gifts were loaded into an unmarked van by staff who refused to provide a name, number or receipt for the gifts. St Nicholas asked one “guard” his name and the man said “write down ‘Father Christmas’”.

St Nick said, “If this is how visitors are treated, I just shudder to imagine what else transpires inside Yarl’s Wood.” While police questioned the St Nicholas team, taxis and delivery lorries made their way in and out of the place with many smiling and stopping to greet the Saint and his companions.

In the afternoon, when St Nicholas returned to make a pre-arranged and approved social visit to two families currently detained, they were informed at the gates that their visit had been cancelled. They were handed letters from Dawn Elaine, the Contracts Manager at Yarl’s Wood, informing them that permission had been revoked because of “concerns about your conduct” when the gifts had been deposited that morning.

The action was organised by the St Nicholas Society and CITIZENS for Sanctuary, a coalition of 13 national faith organisations representing 7 million people to promote a Sanctuary Pledge at the 2010 General Election.

Prospective Parliamentary Candidates across the country will be asked to back the Sanctuary Pledge, which includes a commitment to end the detention of children and families for immigration purposes.

“St Nick has never been turned away from anywhere before. So I was extremely disappointed not be able to hand deliver the gifts to the children detained at Yarl’s Wood today. I hope the kids realise that they will be firmly in my prayers on St Nicholas Day when I preach at the Royal Naval College chapel in Greenwich.”

Canon Professor Nicholas Sagovsky said: “This was about bringing a moment of joy to kids locked up in a deplorable situation. I can’t help but contrast the smiles and wonderment on the faces of the children that St Nicholas visited at a local primary school this afternoon, with the sad fate of those kids who will be locked up in Yarl’s Wood over Christmas. People of goodwill must make sure that their prospective MPs sign the Sanctuary Pledge at the next election so that next St Nicholas’s Day there will no longer be innocent children detained here at Yarl’s Wood.”

St Nicholas’ next visit after Yarl’s Wood is on December 5th when he will parade through the streets of Canterbury with Archbishop Rowan Williams.

Advent: God in the bleak places

maggi dawn — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 09:32:03 +0000

Dave Faulkner writes:

For the second year running, a group called Beyond Church has organised an outdoor Advent calendar. It’s a series of beach huts on Brighton beach. Does anyone fancy Brighton beach in December? They had a hundred people turn up on the first night. But if you don’t fancy that, you can follow it online or follow the daily coverage in The Independent and stay in the comfort of your home. If, however, Brighton in winter isn’t challenging enough for you, then you can travel north to Bridlington, where local Christians are doing the same on their beach. Brighton or Bridlington, though, you’re talking about bleak places at this time of year.

But Advent is about God doing great things in bleak places. Today’s Gospel reading offers us precisely that, as it describes the essence of John the Baptist’s ministry. John’s ministry not in a cold, bleak place but a hot, bleak place – the wilderness – prepared the people of his day for the coming of Jesus. We too may discover a profound meeting with God in the bleak places…

read the rest here

Advent Friday Round-up

maggi dawn — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:38:40 +0000

so much going on! several deadlines, end of term madness, stuff and more stuff. But here are a few Friday items worth checking out:

Mark Pierson on a fantastic bit of curated Advent Worship (do try this at home, but only if you have flood insurance!!)
Dave Walker on Nine Lessons (learned) and Carols
David Keen’s contribution to Friday silliness is The Christmas Linebacker. I’ve read quite a few po-faced anti-religion posts this week and it occurred to me that one of the most appealing things about Christians is that they have no trouble at all poking fun at the curiosities or the excesses of their own religion. As Peter Leithart points out in his marvellous book, Christianity is ultimately a comedy (in the classic sense of something that ends well despite what you go through on the way) not a dour, nihilistic tragedy where everything ends in darkness and death. (If you haven’t read it, buy it RIGHT NOW. Or tell Santa to buy it for you)

Advent exhibitions

maggi dawn — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:51:36 +0000

There’s a range of interesting Advent exhibitions about at the moment – two Advent Beach Hut Calendars, several online ones, and a number of people blogging through Advent.

Gavin Mart writes about an Advent exhibition at LeftBank in Leeds, which he and Si Smith have curated. He makes some pertinent comments about how artworks are affected/inspired/etc by their venue, and how the venue can demand a different standard, or a different kind of work from an artist.

Its the kind of venue that whispers a challenge to any budding artisan. “come on, you know you want to…” . You know what that entails too, because to do anything worth any salt in the original beauty of the venue takes time and effort. You just can’t rush things in there, its stands out a mile against the magnificent architecture. Somehow our modern way of putting events together can sometimes lack integrity against the traditional, ‘they don’t build em like they used to…’ type venues.

Alternative Advent

maggi dawn — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:08:29 +0000

David Keen has collected ten different ways to celebrate Advent in an alternative way, ranging from the socially responsible to the plain whacky. If you want to find out how to build community with biscuits, have a comical advent, or re-invent old traditions, go and have a look.

Advent

maggi dawn — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:53:19 +0000

Advent begins on Sunday. If you haven’t yet got your Advent stuff together you’d better nip over to Proost toot suite and nab a few calendars and resources. They have Beyond’s amazing Advent Beach Hut Calendar (I already have mine hanging on the kitchen wall).If you buy it today you’ll have it in time for Advent.

I usually put some kind of kids activity out by the Christmas tree for my Christmas day service. It’s unrealistic to expect kids to focus on a service on Christmas morning. One year I had Dave Walker’s nativity pictures to colour, last year it was origami angels. When they’ve finished we get the pictures, angels or whatever, up on the corner of the altar as part of the worship offering. This year I think we will have Si Smith’s cut-out-and-make nativity figures, again from the Proost site.

Advent i’s bigger than Christmas if you are a University Chaplain – it’s when we celebrate “College Christmas” – a big service and then a week of events (concerts, parties etc) until the teaching term comes to an end. I’m off to print service sheets and put up a tree now. With a little help from my friends…

ADVENT: How long, O Lord?

maggi dawn — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:30:46 +0000

Twelve years ago this month I was only a few weeks away from delivering my son. I had done quite well up until then, sporting a small, neat little bump. But those last few weeks, all of a sudden it was too much. My back ached, my legs hurt, and no matter what, the baby just would not roll over into the right position. I distracted myself by continuing to work on my PhD right up until the day before I went into labour. Plodding about the corridors of the University Library seemed much better than sitting about and getting introspective. But even so I remember moments when I was suddenly overwhelmed by a mixture of fear (don’t let it happen today, God) and desperation (please let it happen today, God).

Advent begins on Sunday, and one of the themes of Advent is the expectation that God will bring new life to birth within us; that God will be born in us today as surely as Jesus was born back then. And in addition, that a greater, unimaginable birth of the reign of God will somehow break in upon the world at some future time, when the world will, at last, be bathed in God’s love and peace and justice.

Waiting for God to break in on our lives is not all joyful anticipation. Like awaiting a real birth, we long for it desperately, and fear it at the same time. Will it hurt? Will I be the same person afterwards? Will it change me? Can I bear it? What if something goes wrong?

Like awaiting a real birth, there are moments when you can’t believe it will really happen at all – it seems too different, too impossible to be real.

Like awaiting a real birth, the realisation that it will surely happen only comes gradually: from the first wondering moments, to the certainty of the condition, then waiting through the fragile weeks when you hardly dare hope because you know it might all come to nothing. And then, at the end, when it all seems too much to bear, the certainty that there’s no going back.

Like awaiting a real birth, whether you believe it or not, it will happen anyway.

“We hear the Christmas angels the great, glad tidings tell.
O, come to us, abide with us, Our Lord, Emmanuel”

(EDIT: this post first appeared a few years back, and somehow in transferring the blog to the new site it has reappeared here… knowing me I probably pressed the wrong button somewhere. But since it’s almost Advent, I’ll leave it!)

Advent: too busy to stop?

maggi dawn — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:06:44 +0000

Advent (which begins next Sunday) is the time of year when clergy get ready for a non-stop steamroller to Christmas. There is everything, but everything to get done – the carol concerts, the visits, the looking after people who will be alone for Christmas, prep for all the Christmas services, say nothing of your own prep for family celebrations when the madness dies down.Yeah, I know it’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year and all that, but I’ve noticed recently that the eyes of one or two clergy friends have glazed over at the mention of Advent.

Dave’s District Blog takes a different approach. Advent, he says, is not gearing up to go faster and faster until you get to Christmas and collapse in a heap. It’s a time to STOP. Wait a while. Take a close look at the tracks ahead before you proceed any further.

Quite how you do that with Carol concerts and the like to organise I’m not sure. But I like the sound of it.

What is stir-up sunday?

maggi dawn — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:42:17 +0000

what’s stir up sunday?, someone asked me this week.

Stir-up sunday is today (the last Sunday before Advent) and if you want to know more, I wrote a potted history and commentary about it here

Advent calendar

maggi dawn — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:57:51 +0000

Task of the day: complete the planning for our Advent Carol Service. All the pieces are planned, but the devil is in the detail, and it will take me about five of the next twelve days to get the show on the road.

Cheeringly, though, I have my Beyond Beach Hut Advent Calendar hanging on my fridge, which serves as a dual reminder of summer sunshine in Hove, and that Christmas is coming. I blogged about the real life Advent Beach Hut Calendar last year. If you can get to Brighton and Hove any day in December, it’s going to happen again this year. But you can buy the calendar now from Beyond or Proost.