Chocolat and Edward Scissorhands

'Listen, here's what I think. I think that we can't go around... measuring our goodness by what we don't do. By what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think... we've got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create... and who we include'. Thus spoke the young priest in his radical Easter Day homily in the wonderful film version (shown on Christmas Eve) of Joanne Harris' absorbing and insightful novel, 'Chocolat'. What a glorious celebration follows in the village square - a picture of heaven. 'We've got to measure goodness by ....whom we include...' Surely Jesus would have been alongside Vianne Rocher in her Chocolatier enjoying the chocolate even in Lent, welcoming the despised, the oppressed, building bridges of acceptance and transformation.

On Christmas Day in the evening we sat down and watched Edward Scissorhands, a Tim Burton film made 10 years earlier than Chocolat in 1990. Millie our daughter liked it very much and not just because Johnny Depp played Edward Scissorhands. There's a bit of a 'Beauty and the Beast' element to it, with themes of self-discovery, isolation, misunderstood gentleness and stifled creativity. The genesis for it came from a drawing by the then teenaged director Tim Burton which reflected his feelings of isolation and being unable to communicate with people around him in his suburban home in Santa Clarita Valley, California. As in 'Chocolat' I became aware of one who disturbs our comfortable assumptions, who is a friend to the lost and lonely.

Holy Moments - St Peter's Collegiate School Christmas Eucharist

It was the sight of these 11-18 year old pupils lining up and receiving a blessing or choosing to take the bread and wine of communion that moved me. It felt as though just about everyone was taking part - and there are over a 1,000 pupils in the School. Teenagers of different backgrounds, traditions, faiths; for most of whom this must surely be their only contact with church. And in their manner and response at this point of the service I sensed in many a deep and significant spiritual openness; that they were indeed receiving the blessing of God.

I went partly because as Director of World Mission in the Diocese of Lichfield I was trying to encourage a school to school link between this Diocese and one of our Companion Link Dioceses of Mecklenburg, in what was formely East Germany. A group of pupils, parents and teachers from the Fridericianum School in Schwerin had just visited St Peter's School and I was keen to express my appreciation and support for this initiative.

This was their 'Christmas Eucharist' at St Peter's Collegiate Church. I wasn't sure about Eucharist. How can that work in a school context? I realise St Peter's is a State Voluntary Aided Church of England School but part of me might have wanted to make things a bit more 'accessible'. Instead we had the traditional communion liturgy for the Church of England. The curate eventually succeeded in eliminating applause. A woman spoke about her work with Romanian Street Children; a charity supported by the school over a number of years. She shared in a very natural way two spectacular answers to prayer.

According to the school web site 'The mission of our school, rooted in our common life as a worshipping Christian Community, is to educate the whole person so that everyone may find the keys to become all that God has uniquely put it within them to be'. Now that is some education!

The service ended with permitted applause, then the blessing: May the Lord bless you and keep you from all harm. May your Christmas be joyful, peaceful, but if it's neither, may you find yourself in the New Year with the peace that passes all understanding, the peace that the world cannot give, with the blessing of the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Many of us left that morning feeling well blessed.

Hymns and Songs

'Lord, send a beam on me'....... Whatever is happening to the words of hymns these days? All this dumbing down, these banal repetitive platitudes. What a line! And yet, and yet, in the next verse we are singing these sublime words:

'Thou art a sea without a shore,

A sun without a sphere;

Thy time is now and evermore,

Thy place is everywhere'.

I find the words were written by John Mason (1645 - 1694) and I'm told the tune 'Coe Fen' was composed by Ken Naylor, a former Music Teacher at the nearby Shrewsbury School.

Perhaps 'Lord, send a beam on me' is pure brilliance. But whether or not it is I'm willing to go along with it as an expression of worship. I find it so off putting in fact I get angry - when I see members of a choir or clergy up front refusing to sing certain songs or hymns. Yes there is much rubbish - plenty of it new, plenty of it old - but worship goes beyond the intellect and a Taize chant such as 'The Lord is my light and salvation, in Him I trust' repeated endlessly can go deep and enable our hearts to engage. And so can a simple recitation of God's name, or a short phrase oft repeated expressing our love for God, and God's love for us - as simple as 'I love you'.

My own experience of worship has been fundamentally shaped by two encounters in my early twenties - the full bodied dynamic worship of Christians in an Anglican Church in Kenya; at the time I found charismatics in England and especially America did nothing for me yet here were people singing with their bodies, moving, clapping and dancing - and I wanted what they had. The second experience came some four years later in South India; my explorations were taking me a long distance from my one time established Christian faith. I was moved and inspired by the simple devotion of Hindu worshippers in the temples - singing their bhajans (worship songs) reciting over and over again a name for God. I found myself wanting to worship Jesus in a similar way..............

Confessor for the Faith

Martin Wilson, son of Bishop Leonard Wilson of Singapore and Birmingham, lent me a copy of the now out of print biography of his father by Roy McKay. I first came across Bishop Wilson through the Malawi Diocesan Link in Birmingham which had been set up through the enthusiasm of Bishop Wilson's daughter, Susan.Then in Singapore I heard of his ministry as Bishop and of his internment at Changi Prison.

I was intrigued to read of the way in which Mary was able to find out that her husband was in Changi Prison. She had been forced to move from Singapore with the children to Australia and Bishop Wilson communicated news of his internment on a postcard which contained 'just ordinary remarks saying he was well, and hoping that she was, and asking after the children, and then ended with these words, 'Interesting news at the end of a letter from Col. Paul Moffatt.' Years later he told her that she knew she had a crossword puzzle mind, and would work it out. She found her way to the final verses of the Epistle to the Colossians in Moffatt's translation, and read, 'This salutation is in my own hand. Remember I am in prison. Grace be with you.'