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Hallo again to all.

We find it quite astonishing that we have once again barrelled through the year to Christmas, finding ourselves breathless on Advent IV. Will we ever 'be ready'? As we rush to complete our Christmas preparations, we share with you some of our favourite links:

This moving and occasionally catches-in-your-throat meditation about the Word becoming Flesh, over at Ship of Fools, Are you flesh of our flesh? Bone of our bones? by Martin Wroe.

The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from the Choir of King's College, Cambridge.

Our own Brian Reid's essay on myrrh.

The Archbishop of Canterbury's talk, given last week as the 2002 Richard Dimbleby Lecture, which begins 'One of the sure signs of getting older is when you hear yourself sounding like your parents'.

A good parish web site, such as St Peter's Church Nottingham or the Church of St Luke in the Fields, New York City.

And this poem*:

So, friends, every day do something that won't compute.
Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
     [...]
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium.
Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mould.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion—put your ear close,
and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world.
Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable.
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
     [...]
As soon as the generals and politicos can predict the motions
of your mind, lose it.
Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn't go.
Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.  

We wish a Happy Christmas to all our friends round the world: love, light, grace, and peace to each of you as you celebrate the nativity of our Saviour.

See you next week.

Cynthia McFarland cmcf@anglicansonline.org	Brian Reid reid@anglicansonline.org

Last updated: 22 December 2002
URL: http://anglicansonline.org/

*From Wendell Berry's Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front