Moot » christmas

Christmas comes again

ianmobsby — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:15:53 +0000

Christmas and Easter are the high points of the Christian liturgical calendar, which emphasise the two great truths and theology of the faith. The incarnation emphasises God’s love and grace through what is called incarnational theology, (literally God coming in human form) and Easter as the call to repentance and belief in the life, death and resurrection of God which emphasises redemptive theology.

The idea of God coming as a baby is extremely difficult for us in the 21st century – it is not logical, it cannot be factual and it most definitely is not rational. This is because Christianity cannot ultimately be learned as some form of propositional fact – it needs to be experienced to be true. Only when we draw on what is called trans-rationality, experience of God, are we able to encounter paradox, through experience of encountering God. Then the gift of GOd coming into the world is awe inspiring, because it has to be the ultimate expression of love.

You only have to see just how vulnerable newly born children are, to see what a risk God made in coming in human form. It is ultimately a mystery that emphasises God’s love for us. Emmanuel literally means -the God with us. It is this ‘with us’ that moves me every time I go to midnight mass at a local church in the dark, to the light and hope of the divine story of the coming of the Lord, of the Trinity and the beginning of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Happy Christmas

ianmobsby — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 01:23:06 +0000

On this Christmas day we remember the miracle of the Incarnation of God, the Emmanuel, the ‘God with us’. The birth of Jesus begins the period of history which Christians call ‘the reign of God’ and the beginning of the Kingdom of God. Jesus is the paradox and miracle who was fully God and fully human and is uniquely placed in history to stand against oppression with love, against power with powerlessness and against arrogance with humility.

So on behalf of Mooters, have a spiritual Christmas and a flourishing New Year.

fragile newborn tissue

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:03:47 +0000

Fragile newborn flesh just hours into the air of the world.
Miraculously formed in a uterus, knit together skin and tissue, small nails, bones. Soft like marrow, a soft skull over a young, extremely young mind. Taking in slow and wonder-made sight of new world. Just born this morning. That’s how fresh you are. Fresh to the world.
You were this once.
You were all this once.
Tiny vulnerable immune system. Lungs learning rhythm they will sustain without rest for decades now. Any germs or dirt drifting in the air nothing to adult bodies and yet potential harm, potential threat, to this young, little body.
“The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”.
This is the frailty the divine took on. This is the damage-prone frail, the vulnerable state of body, state of mind, state of heart and soul and spirit and flesh.
I am frail. Sometimes when my eyes are crowded with people and tunnel and tube, and I am underground and air feels a long way up and out of my catch, I react in my limbs and my lungs and there is panic in my spine and my face amd people have to help me get off the train and go up the stairs and the escalators and stop my fear.
I am frail when I am not resilient, to the conscious, and unconscious, slings and arrows from people, whose opinions matter to me, whose love or lack of love matters to me. I am frail when I am not robust, to those things.
(And I am frail to you God, I am not robust to you).
This is the frailty the divine took on.
This is the damage-prone frail, the vulnerable state of body, state of mind, state of heart and state of soul and of spirit and of flesh.
And not just on one day, in one being, Jesus Christ, whom we call Son of God.
It is not just over one birth that ‘while mortals sleep, they angels keep / their watch of wondering love’. It was not only in those ‘dark streets that shines the everlasting light’. In these darks streets too. In all dark streets.
Not just on that day. Every day. And everyone. EveryBODY.
You.
Now.
The divine takes you on.
God takes you on.
All your frail flesh.
Deity inhabits it.
Divine lights it up. Light up. You are full of God.

Not at home

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:20:00 +0000

It’s a stronge feeling celebrating Christmas here. It’s neither the snowy trees and early dusk of London nor the warm sun of Harare; neither the mid-winter chill and family comforts of one home nor the summer swims and barbecues of the other. Here it’s sunny all right, but not very warm – evenings are down to single figures – and the winter rains have damped down the dust. Days are a little shorter (I get back from the gym comfortably before sunrise, since that’s not until 7 a.m.) but there’s none of that sense of the dead of the year, the wondering whether summer will ever return.

And it’s a different sort of feel to the politics too. Christmas celebrates the birth of a baby to an IDP single mother (IDPs, internally displaced persons, is the official term for people taking refuge within their own country). That strikes a chord today, for there are still many vulnerable IDPs here. She was moved around her country by an occupying power which treated her people as second-class citizens. A couple of years ago the first part of that, too, could have struck a chord, though today military occupation is a thing of the past. And there was no shopping spree for Mary, just a hard journey in the chill of a Palestinian winter. That at least rings true here; no shopping malls or Christmas jingles disfigure my Advent this year.

So in some ways this Christmas feels more original than usual. Away from home, free of the ads and the consumption, there’s much to miss and much to recognise. I’ve been very busy indeed over the past few months – so busy that it has been hard to wake early enough to make the time for prayer that I allocated in my day-plan – and when work, which always fills all seven days anyway, chews up my evenings too I’ve found it all too easy to sink into a kind of weary self-indulgence of food and TV instead of the effort of independent thought. So Christmas, which today has at last brought the pause that allows me to reflect, provides a chance for me to breathe, to raise my head and notice what I’ve been missing.

This year we’re not doing presents as a family. We’re taking a break from that aspect of consumption. And being here, in the land of the Magi, displaced and unaccompanied, I can value the time that’s freed up, and use it to reshape the way I am. So I am finding this an unusually rich Christmas, the more so for being in some ways one of the harder ones.

Fragile newborn tissue

admin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:34:00 +0000

Fragile newborn flesh just hours into the air of the world.
Miraculously formed in a uterus, knit together in skin and tissue, small nails, bones. Soft like marrow, a soft skull
over a young, extremely young mind. Taking in slow and wonder-made sight of new world. Just born this morning. That’s how fresh you are. Fresh to the world.
You were this once.
You were all this once.
Tiny vulnerable immune system. Lungs learning rhythm they will sustain without rest for decades now. Any germs or dirt drifting in the air nothing to adult bodies and yet potential harm, potential threat, to this young, little body.
“The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.”
This is the frailty the divine took on. This is the damage-prone frail, the vulnerable state of body, state of mind, state of heart and soul and spirit and flesh.
I am frail. Sometimes when my eyes are crowded with people and tunnel and tube, and I am underground and air feels a long way up and out of my catch, I react in my limbs and my lungs and there is panic in my spine and my face and people have to help me get off the train and go up the stairs and the escalators and stop my fear.
I am frail when I am not resilient to the conscious, and unconscious, slings and arrows from people, whose opinions matter to me, whose love or lack of love matter to me. I am frail when I am not robust, to those things.
(And I am frail to you God, I am not robust to you).
This is the frailty the divine took on.
This is the damage-prone frail, the vulnerable state of body, state of mind, state of heart and state of soul and of spirit and of flesh.
And not just on one day, in one being, Jesus Christ, whom we call Son of God.
It is not just over one birth that ‘while mortals sleep, the angels keep / their watch of wondering love.’ It was not only in those ‘dark streets that shines the everlasting light.’ In these dark streets too. In all dark streets.
Not just on that day. Every day. And everyone. EveryBODY.
You.
Now.
The divine takes you on.
All your frail flesh.
Deity inhabits it.
Divine lights it up. Light up. You are full of God.

By Grace Cowley

CHRISTMAS PARTY THIS FRIDAY!!

admin — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:38:16 +0000

7.30 – 11pm, 18th Dec 2009.

Red Lion Pub
41 Hoxton Square
Shoreditch, London, N1 6NH

for a map click here

This is our annual get together. Bring a friend, enjoy the food and music and lovely Mooters who you haven’t seen for ages.

There’s a fiver donation to cover (what we are told will be) a spectacular buffet.

See you there!

by David

Moot Christmas Party

admin — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:34:00 +0000

I often ask myself why I celebrate Christmas at all. I like Jesus but to be honest I’m not such a big fan of tinsel, sexy Santas, turkey or Oxford-street-crowd-fighting.
But then, when I get asked to do things like organise the Moot Christmas Party 2008, I realise just how fun and important it all is.

What does anybody reckon about this place? It’s open weekdays, meaning we don’t have to drink £4000 worth of alcohol just for them to open up for us. It’s called the Artillery Arms, located on Bunhill Row. EC1Y. They seem to have a great selection of real ale too.

If you don’t like the look of it/have been there before and know it’s awful please let me know now.
David

Happy Christmas

admin — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 01:59:00 +0000

As we celebrate with a sense of awe, the God who comes to us in human form. God-Human Redeemer that comes to us in the power of God the Sustainer in the name of God the Creator.

12 Days of Christmas

admin — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:14:00 +0000

Happy Christ Mass

admin — Fri, 24 Dec 2004 21:05:00 +0000

Greetings of the season to all you Mootites and friends of the Moot community. Not that it sounds like we are a very healthy lot!! Thoughts and prayers to those with the flu, chest infections, sleeplessness due to new births, and poor Jonathan B who has Chicken pox from his kids. Hopefully this slowdown time might be a welcome space for some convalesence as a spiritual time…. see you all in 2005…..Space 1999 seems so far away now!! Ian