Yesterday’s Christmas service went smoothly, I think. I am a little uncomfortable about both of my sermons from Christmas this year, which means it’s all the more important that I post them publicly so as not to cater to my own vanity and perfectionism. I’ll add them below the fold when I give them another pass for misspellings, extra words I forgot to edit out (those can be a real killer when you’re in mid-exposition and suddenly a word that you haven’t seen in days turns out not to have been edited out when you recomposed the sentence with which you’d been tinkering for twenty minutes).
We left church to the firm, repeated adjuration, ‘Coffee and alcohol! Coffee and alcohol!’ (we neglected the ‘coffee’ part, though I’d totally have poured myself a cup in a travel mug except that we were taking a taxi and I didn’t want to risk spoiling the driver’s seat covers).
Then we went to a dear friend’s house to spend the afternoon having a slow, continuous Christmas dinner and Christmas drinks. Jokes, in-jokes, job commentary, theological arguments, friendship banter, impressive children, and lovingly offered gifts filled the day, and Margaret and I returned home weary but not sleepy, nibbling and sipping, and ebbing from vivacious conversation to drowsy quiet to dozy silence. I slept more than eight hours, which I rarely can achieve. I’m doing nothing very productive today: a revelation.
Bless you all. Bless you all. (Sermons to come, will delete this part when they’re posted, but remember that today I fast from everything like ‘responsibility’, so I won’t, don’t feel pressurised to post ’em quickly.) (OK, I didn’t delete the above, but I’m adding this note to say, ‘Now posted below.’)
