Article in Stretton Focus, December 2017
Have you noticed there is more than ever going on? Change is everywhere, and there is more of it all the time. Every week seems to have more in it – more information, more advertising, more contention, more reported violence, more of this, that and everything else.
Even Christmas seems affected. Once it was an opportunity to slow down, to talk, to listen and to enjoy the company of loved ones. Now there are more TV channels, more TV repeats, more food is required, more hysterical hype, more toys and more technology, more chocolate, more of this, that and everything else.
This year we have had more anniversaries than ever. Radio 4 was 50, the Today programme and Test Match Special both had 60th birthdays, it is 20 years since Lady Diana sadly died, and the Battle of Passchendaele had its centenary. So it goes on, remembering more of this, that and everything else.
If we look for the unchanging constants there is the Queen and the Shipping Forecast. I would have liked to add Big Ben to that list but … sadly …
However, Christmas itself is a constant, although I detach the material hype and hysteria to see it that way. The story of the nativity, accompanied by readings and carols which are loved and familiar, is a story of a new beginning. You may or may not believe it as a tale of divine intervention, that is irrelevant. It is a story of a child born into a world of uncertainty, where gratuitous violence existed, poverty was widespread, and kind hearts were more difficult to find than hardened ones.
Sound familiar?
The child grew to manhood and taught about justice, hope, compassion, and neighbourly love. He created an unchanging constant, one which man has attempted to ignore for centuries but remains alive today. Even amid our world’s uncertainty and violence there is a place for unlimited justice, compassion and neighbourly love, and hope is eternal. Let us not forget all that. We can put aside the this, that, and everything else that goes on in life; the unchanging constant which came one Christmas is above it all.
Roger Wilson
