marramgrass

• Winter seems to have finally arrived here in Northern Ireland. We had a couple of excellently cold days, and now it’s just wet. That is the true heart of winter in this part of the world. One of the things I miss about Edinburgh is how it could get properly cold, and even snow occasionally.
• In spite of my intentions otherwise, as Christmas gets closer I only seem to get busier. It seems like I could do with it being eight weeks away instead of four. It’s probably about time I learned some time-management. That or employed a ghost-writer, along with a ghost-facilitator, ghost-trainer and ghost-student… Less than four weeks to a wee break is great and terrible both at once. And I’m horrified that the Advent has become a countdown to holiday, at least on some level.
• The iPhone interface is not hugely well-suited to inputting HTML. Finding the < and > symbols takes too many actions, and the auto-correct gets occasionally flummoxed by the tags. Yet strangely it seems quite happy with ‘flummoxed’. Still, it gives me something to do when I’m waiting on my wife and I’ve forgotten my novel.

I believe they were turning on the Christmas lights in Belfast tonight, five weeks before Christmas. Since I posted the other day, I’ve been thinking some more about the whole gift-giving thing.

Specifically, I thought about how this time of year, for my family, has been the time of the ‘big’ gift, the thing you’d really like to have but can’t get (or can’t justify getting) for yourself. There’s something cool about that, but at the same time it requires a bit of a pause for thought, and in my pause I remembered a friend from Edinburgh.

This guy did something once that raised a few eyebrows among those who know him. A guitarist, when he decided to concentrate on the acoustic instrument for a while he began to dispose of all his electric gear — guitars, amps, effects. Some got sold on, but some was given away to others. (Full disclosure: I have in my possession a couple of very nice bits of gear he gifted me. I’m still humbled by it.) Any musicians out there will know that putting your kit together can be expensive in terms of cash, of effort and of time, so this was not an insignificant thing for him to do.

I remember some wondering if he had thought it through, and the occasional muttering about these young folks not knowing the value of things, of money, of… whatever.

Then and now, I realised that the opposite was true. He got it exactly. The material value of things, of money, of… is fleeting. This guy was of the opinion that he wasn’t using the gear, and someone else could. He knew that to have the right attitude was to hold on lightly, because at the end of the day it’s just stuff, you know?

Which brings me back to the giving of gifts at Christmas. I say that the extravagant gift-giving is cool not for the “Wahey! Look what I got!” factor, but for the “Wow. Look what you gave.” factor. Only one of the many ways we try to express care and love for each other as we celebrate Christmas in the West, this is maybe where we’re most prone to getting sidetracked by the medium and forgetting the message. Its meaning and beauty is in the sacrifice and intent of the giver.

Now where’ve I heard that before?

Driving to church this morning, I realised (as in, I idly figured out) that from today it is five weeks and two days until Christmas. Cue the traditional “Aargh! No shopping yet!” panic that must accompany such a revelation, and add a healthy dash of financial anxiety.

For many of us, the giving of gifts is a vital ingredient in the season, and it is backed by a rich symbolism. But, be honest, when was the last time you considered that significance? It’s good to give, yes, but it’s awfully easy to get lost in the lists of hims and hers that we need to come up with a cool/imaginative/thoughtful/significant/affordable/valuable/delete-as-appropriate gift for, and forget the why — be it a celebration joined, an obligation felt or simply an expression of friendship or love, something to say, “You’re important to me.”

In the midst of it all, the joy and the anxiety, I think I’ll be glad of The Mockingbird’s Leap. I hope so.

There are many elements to my character I’m not proud of. One of them is that I find it difficult to not say “yes” — leading to a ridiculous busyness that seems to even get in the way of itself. The day job keeps me going; the little sidelines are fun but often include missed deadlines; the writing I throw at the world here becomes inane as I discover that all my words get taken up by paid work and when I sit down to write for me (which is all I ever hoped for this site) it’s become a drudge and the best I can do is chuck out a daft pun or another dull post about computers or gadgets; my understanding of ‘important’ gets skewed; relationships suffer…

Of course the other side of it is that I’m privileged in many ways: the people I encounter everyday, the comfort of my life, the opportunities I’m given and the experiences I find. I say “yes” because I can, and that’s not a state to be taken for granted.

But in my busyness, what do I miss?

I’ve been invited to join a group blog at The Mockingbird’s Leap. It’s a short-term thing, and the idea is simple.

beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. the least we can do is try to be there.

Annie Dillard

Through the season of Advent we commit to seeking to notice the wonder around us, the ‘beauty and grace’ that God showers the world with whether we see it or not — he’s like that. Which will mean lifting my head from the busyness in front of me, looking around and allowing my awareness to breathe.