The Perils of Christmas Carols

I recently came across some "Health, Safety and Equality Considerations for Christmas Songs" and I shared some of them with my congregation this morning. For any of you preparing for Carol services, I thought these guidelines may be helpful. Here they are:

The Rocking Song

Little Jesus, sweetly sleep, do not stir;
We will lend a coat of fur,
We will rock you, rock you, rock you,
We will rock you, rock you, rock you:

1. Fur is no longer appropriate wear for small infants, both due to risk of allergy to animal fur, and for ethical reasons. Therefore a nice cellular blanket or micro-fleece material should be considered as a suitable alternative.

2. A full risk assessment should be carried out before any attempt at rocking the cradle is made. Furthermore, the baby must be restrained in the cradle with a safety harness complying with United Nations ECE Regulation R44.04.

3. Only persons who have been subject to a Criminal Records Bureau check and have an enhanced disclosure should be permitted to rock baby Jesus.

Little Donkey

Little donkey, little donkey on the dusty road
Got to keep on plodding onwards with your precious load

1. The RSPCA have issued strict guidelines with regard to how heavy a load a donkey of small stature is permitted to carry. Also included in the guidelines is information regarding how often to feed the donkey and how many rest breaks are required over a four hour plodding period.

2. Please note that due to the increased risk of pollution from the dusty road, Mary and Joseph are required to wear face masks to prevent inhalation of any airborne particles.

3. The donkey has expressed his discomfort at being labelled 'little' and would prefer just to be simply referred to as Mr. Donkey. To comment upon his height or lack thereof may be considered an infringement of his equine rights.

While Shepherds Watched

While shepherds watched their flocks by night

all seated on the ground
The angel of the Lord came down

and glory shone around.

1. The union of Shepherds has complained that it breaches health and safety regulations to insist that shepherds watch their flocks without appropriate seating arrangements being provided, therefore benches, stools and orthopaedic chairs are now available.

2. Shepherds have also requested that due to the inclement weather conditions at this time of year they should be able to watch their flocks via cctv cameras from centrally heated shepherd observation huts.

3. As a safety precaution, before the angel of the Lord shines his/her glory around, all shepherds should be issued with glasses capable of filtering out the harmful effects of UVA, UVB and Glory rays.

Finally, thank you for your co-operation in these matters. We hope you have a Happy Wintermas.

Scientists agree with common sense (again!)

In the newspaper yesterday there was an article entitled, "Scientists give grubby children a clean bill of health" Researchers have discovered germs that live on our skin and are actually good for us and help dampen down overactive immune systems. But the age of antibacterial sprays, wipes and everything else is actually leading to more people suffering from things like hay fever and eczema.

Well, we've been saying it for ages! Now science has proved common sense right all along.

Of course, all this antibacterial stuff kills something like 99.9% of germs. That's good, isn't it? But what about the 0.1% that doesn't get destroyed? It develops immunity from what's supposed to kill it off and a "super bug" is born.

So my unscientific mind says all this insistence on hygiene has caused increased cases of minor problems like eczema and increased cases of major problems posed by super bugs.

Oh well, that's progress - isn't it?

Shopping Slip Up

Yesterday evening was late night shopping at our Debenham's, so we went. We did manage to do some of our Christmas shopping, but I wanted to tell you about an 'incident' and the absurdity of what people sometimes say.

A assistant was mopping the floor and a girl of about 12 slipped over on it. The assistant pointed to the "Caution, wet floor" sign. The girl, as she got up, said, "Sorry!" WHY?? She had done nothing wrong. The assistant said, "Be careful!" Rather redundant as she had already slipped over!

Oh, the joys of late-night shopping ...

Charge!

I read a little while ago that mobile phone companies had agreed a standard connection for chargers so you don't have to have a different one for every phone. One day it may become reality. Until then ...

I have a charger for my mobile phone. My wife has three chargers, one for her work phone, one for her personal phone and one for her bluetooth. They are all in a plastic bag in a drawer.

What I want to know is, why is it that when I try to find my charger, it's always the fifth one I get hold of?

On Sunday morning we were looking at St Peter walking on the water to Jesus - we did an "in-depth" study! It's actually a hard thing to imagine.

For instance, take the picture in the right, at first glance I thought he was surfing!

But back to the story, which you can read in the Bible, Matthew 14:22-33. Two points that struck me.
The first one was that Peter didn't venture onto the water until Jesus had said, "Come". People talk about Peter's foolishness but it wasn't about foolishness but about obedience. I noticed that when Peter began to sink and Jesus rescued him, Jesus didn't ask, "Why did you do it?" No, he asked, "Why did you doubt?"

Secondly, why did Peter do it? St Mark's Gospel tells us that Jesus was "about to pass them by." I think Peter saw that Jesus might pass them by and he thought:

Better to be what appears to be in danger out on the water , but with Jesus,
- than in the apparent safety of the boat without Jesus.

Sometimes life seems a little risky when we follow Jesus, but better to be with Jesus, doing his will, than without him doing our own thing!

Opinion Polls

On reading my blog below about Afghanistan and the opinion polls, a friend pointed me to the following clip from Yes Minister:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yhN1IDLQjo
Proving that there are lies, damned lies and statistics (or something like that Winston Churchill said).

Last Night's News

WE sat down to watch the BBC 10 o'clock news last night, wanting to keep up with what's happening in the world.

The main item was that the man accused of masterminding the 9/11 bombing of the twin towers is to stand trial in New York, not far from Ground Zero. He is currently being held in Guantanamo Bay. Informative though this is, was it the MOST important thing that happened in the world yesterday? And it wasn't just the facts that were reported, we also had interviews of people, some who think he should never be allowed to tread on America's soil, others who think it's right he is tried there.

After about seven minutes, the BBC had milked the story as far as they could and we passed on to other news. And only just in time - I was fast losing the will to live!

Afghanistan

We heard a few days ago about another of those public opinion polls - this time about the war in Afghanistan, done for the BBC's Politics Show. It was taken as the public's support for the war is declining. But then I had a look at the questions asked.

It was one of those "Do you agree or disagree with the statement" type of surveys. The first one was, I feel I have a good understanding of the purpose of Britain's mission in Afghanistan. 42% disagreed, which means they admit to not understanding the purpose of the mission. However, 64% agreed with, The war in Afghanistan is unwinnable. But how can that many say that when 42% don't understand the mission in the first place?

Another statement was, All British forces should be withdrawn from Afghanistan as quickly as possible and 63% agreed. But surely isn't that what everyone should want, whether or not they agree with the war? I can't see that says anything about whether people 'support' the war or not.

The lesson for me, Don't just listen to the 'spin'!

Addenda on Poppies

Further to my blog below, let me add two things.

Firstly, in spite of what I said, I was seen walking through Basildon wearing a poppy on Saturday. This was because I bought one and the lady insisted she pinned it on me. That was very nice of her, of course. However, it will go on a different jacket next Sunday, Remembrance Sunday, so it is sitting safely on my bedside cabinet.

Secondly, I have to admit to having a 'spare' poppy in my bedside cabinet drawer! This is the previous year's poppy I bought and it is a "panic spare" in case I can't find mine on Sunday morning. I will throw it away after Sunday, and this year's will become the spare.

It's all very logical, and necessary as, being out the front on Sunday, I don't want to be embarrassed without a poppy!