St Johns with St Barnabas

Now you may or may not welcome this important information I am about to give you, but here goes anyway. There are now 53 shopping days left before Christmas day. I know, you really wanted to know that didn’t you !!

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You may have already promised yourself, like me, this year I will be ready early, I won’t overspend, I will remain cool, calm and collected at all times, and I will not get grumpy and overtired, or ill, But ….ummmm well, we will see.

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Rosie, Mopsy and I are still on holiday in Cumbria, and we really were not thinking about Christmas, but - of course, everywhere you go in the towns the signs are there. The shops are already filled with Faux Christmas trees, sparkling decorations, festive fayre to eat and drink, gifts for that special someone who has everything etc. And yes, we have bought a few things.

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November seems to pull us both backward and forward- looking to what’s gone, and reaching out to what’s coming. It’s a funny thing, how we live anywhere but now. Some of us like to dwell on past memories, others live for the future, planning, waiting, worrying, or hoping for what’s next. Yet real life, the place where God meets us, is always here, in the present moment.

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Jesus said, ‘Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself’. He wasn’t saying we shouldn’t plan or remember, but that each day has enough in it for us to meet God afresh. When we spend our energy living in ‘then’ or’ when’, we miss what he’s doing now.

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November gives us a gentle nudge to stop and be present. To notice the rustle of leaves, the comfort of light in the window, the small kindnesses that mark out or days. To breathe, to give thanks, to trust that even here in the middle of unfinished things, God is with us.

Advent will come, Christmas will come, but this very moment will never be repeated. And maybe that’s where true faith begins: not in clinging to the past or racing to the future, but in quietly receiving the gift of today.

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As the psalmist says: This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.

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A Prayer: Lord of all our days, you hold the past, the present and the future in your hands.

Teach us to live here, in the gift of today. Amen.