The Long Walk Home

We have internet again. That and the rather muddled couple of weeks we’ve had moving into our new flat has meant a break from the world of this blog. If you care, I apologise and reassure you that I’m back with another of those posts that will make you happy if you live in Brighton and long to live here if not, or you know, wish that occasionally I would shut up about Brighton.

Yes, it’s another I *heart* Brighton post. The other night we headed off down to the sea front to watch the annual burning of the clocks parade, leaving aside the amount of times I asked husbandface if they were going to throw the clocks into the sea (no, because then it would be called the throwing the clocks in the sea parade…).  Pretty lanterns in the shapes of clocks past us on our way, I think the crocodile from Peter Pan made an appearance and we managed to stand on tip toes long enough to see the massive bonfire being lit and the clocks duly burnt (oh and some rather odd pagan pronouncements about what on earth was going on: They explain: “Burning the Clocks is an antidote to the excesses of the commercial Christmas. People gather together to make paper and willow lanterns to carry through their city and burn on the beach as a token for the end of the year … The lantern makers become part of the show as they invest the lanterns with their wishes, hopes, and fears and then pass them into the fire. Same Sky are masters at creating new urban rituals to replace those traditional festivals that were lost in the dash to be new and non superstitious.”)

All in all I think it was an effort to rail against the darkness in this rather bleak mid winter time that we are having at the moment. And for a brief period it did. We oooed and ahhhed at the pretty fireworks lighting up the sky, at the bonfire and at the lanterns piercing holes in the dark sky above us. The trouble is none of these things lasted. When I ran down to the beachfront this morning the fire will was as cold and grey as the morning that surrounds it. I am sure that we haven’t made any impact on the actual turn of the earth and the darkness that circles us both in our minds and in this world.

It’s not too much of a leap to jump forward a few days to the coming of the King of Kings, born in a stable, born weak and vulnerable in this world and yet the one who really could and did kick a massive hole in the darkness. The one before whom darkness flees away, the true Sun rising from heaven as the dawn rises on this dark world.  The light shines in the darkness and the darkness comprehends it not. There is a real hope in the midst of this bleak winter. There is reality of a God who comes to his world as one of us to save us from the darkness, mess and brokenness that characterizes lives lived away from him and in this broken messy world. There is true light and hope to be found as we relate to each other and learn how to do that well without holding onto what I want all the time. There is a better way to live. And ultimately a better future to look forward to.

We also enjoyed Handel’s Messiah at the Brighton Dome (see- Brighton rocks, come on- move here, you know you want to…) the following evening. A very different experience. A confident proclamation that there is more to this world than we can see in front of our eyes, that we are mere dust and there is one who was born into our world, was despised and rejected, yet rose again and reigns forever and ever. A vast message of comfort and joy to this broken world. The world seems to carry on regardless, unseeing, unrecognising. Yet it is to this world that the Light has come and the darkness continues to not know what to do with it. There is Hope this Christmas time. There is Light in the darkness this Christmas time and there is someone who wants to live with us, to transform our lives and to help us look to the One who reigns forever and ever and ever and ever.

This has nothing to do with Advent. It’s just something I feel the need to get off my chest on a Monday evening in our study. I miss compilation tapes. I’ve been sorting out things in preparation for our move down the road at the weekend and came across this beauty from my teenage years. Yes I was a teenager when Blur and Oasis were fighting it out in the 90s. I used to make endless compilation tapes to accompany me on my journeys around Guildford in our car, for friends on their Birthdays and to mark special occasions.

I still retain the last vestiges of this dying art as each year Anna, Sarah and my brother get a snap shot of songs I’ve loved over the years, but it’s just not the same. Putting a song on a play list is too straightforward, there is no art in pressing record at the right time, or making sure you press pause before you press stop so you don’t have a screeching noise between songs. It’s also far too quick these days, you don’t have to listen to each song as you go along, no longer is this an evening activity, it can be done in a matter of minutes. It’s also harder then to judge the tracklisting right, when you don’t listen to the song all the way through before the next one there is less time to ponder just what the right next song is.

Playlists on spotify occasionally soothe my need to make a compilation tape these days but I still miss the making lists, figuring out what song will go best next and the joy of playing the tape in the car for the first time wondering if I’ve made the right choices or not.