Well, that was Christmas, that was! Today, we have taken down - well, nearly - the decorations (some remain, waiting for a ladder, up which I will not go!) Next Sunday we will not be singing carols, and then it's all over.
It was a good celebration. Our carol concert was relaxed, happy and welcoming, with some wonderful music. Our nativity scene at the morning service which involved shepherds, angels and a butterfly was wonderful, and the young people's nativity presentation in the evening was, as always, a triumph of faith over planning, and demonstrated the ongoing reality of the miracle of meeting to worship. Then carols on the doorstep on Christmas eve - cold, but fun and well received. A midnight service with several visitors, and a Christmas morning service with several other visitors. And the Sunday after Christmas, when with the Sunday Club, we followed the magis' journey, complete with stars, gifts, cradle and leaving by a different route.
As always, all sorts of mixed feelings, wonderful music, old friends and new friends, and an overwhelming number of cards.
And this week we go back to "normal" - whatever that is.
And that is the point. If all that we have been celebrating and enjoying, the whole story we have been telling and the songs we have been singing - if it is true, then normal is stranger than we realised. And so our living in it, and our living with it, making sense of it will always be provisional, uncertain, exciting and open to change.
One of the songs we sang several times (I lost track of my carol choosing I am afraid; I usually try to avoid repetition) included the lines "Who would think that what was needed to redeem and save the earth might not be a plan or army, proud in purpose, proved in worth". The more often I sang it, the more often that middle section stood out - who would think that what was needed...might not be a plan?
I am not noted for my capacity to plan, but this line has haunted me over the last weeks. Perhaps part of the call this year is not only not to get tied to a rigid plan - but not to worry about that. Instead, to enjoy it, to know that God is at work in the places we haven't thought of, and certainly wouldn't have planned, and what we are invited to do is join in.
I am setting this phrase as my screen saver this year. Perhaps it will free me from the feeling that I ought at least to try and plan!