puzzles

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Never a fan of the jigsaw, I prefer puzzles to be three (or four) dimensional.  Wooden polyhedrons, gyrating shapes, kaleidoscopes, New Testament essays and ‘blank slate’ liturgies all fit the bill.

Given the time of year, you can guess it’s the last I’ve been working on.

Our Advent Carol Service is the ‘biggest’ liturgy of the year.  Oh, all right —  Christmas Eve and the Easter Vigil might technically win out, but I tend to think that the major feast need to unfold with quiet dignity and that means less puzzle solving for me.

This year, the Carol Service has felt especially tricky because at some point along the line, I realised that the ‘in house’ poems and prose that were being written by members of the congregation were so good that I should let them stand unsupported.  So, I put away all my resource files, stopped trawling books of poetry and kept checking my in-box.

The wealth of writing talent in these little congregations is amazing:  two poets, two prose writers, all offering a distinct voice and willing to write on demand.

This is alongside an equally impressive wealth of  in-house musical talent which will be supplemented this year by an octet the organist conducts.

For weeks now, I have been staring at some lovely looking pieces of the puzzle.  But I couldn’t quite see the goal.  Three things would fit together in one corner and another five would link elsewhere on the floor, but in-between?  nothing but a nervous gap.

Then today it all changed.  I re-read  two of the prose passages and realised they were beginning and end.  I noticed the phrase written by a former member of the Rothesay congregation that led perfectly to one of the ‘where shall I put it’ bits of music.  A Dunoon poem that had been sitting comfortably with its Brandine friend suddenly went for a walk and provided a transition between sections.   And it all started to happen.

When I was ten, one of my classmates was very good at solving the Rubik’s cube.   He worked fast, and you couldn’t see what was happening, but you could always tell when he was getting close because the atmosphere in the room shifted.

It was like that, Spirit hovering and nudging; poems, prose and music suddenly clicking into place.

Bliss.

So now, we have entered a new phase of nervousness.  Can I find the right voices?  Will it live on the day?

Kelvin recently quoted Wilde’s ‘terrible suspence’.  It is like that.   What fun.

just, wondering

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This is one for all you bloggers, teachers, story tellers and  preachers.

Do you find that the business of writing texts that are designed to be read on screen or aloud wreaks havoc with your punctuation?

I’ve been aware for a while now that I am using more commas than I used to.  I usually blame it on getting confused between American and British punctuation.  But today, I printed out a document that I had read at least six times on my computer screen, and then had to print it out again after deleting a dozen commas.

One-who-shall-remain-nameless used to collect extraneous apostrophes in the letters he received and send them back to the author.  Perhaps I need to set you all a game of gathering up unhelpful commas to see if I can stop this habit it its tracks.

signs and symbols

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When I was a child, I loved opening my Advent calendar each day.  There it sat, a wonderfully rich and intricate picture, with numbers well hidden in the folds of Mary’s skirt or the arch of an angel’s wing.  Once I found the day’s window, I would prise it open ever so carefully, so as not to loose a bit of the glitter and gilt, and then I would peer at the tiny new picture inside.

Now, I’m as fond of chocolate as the next person, but modern Advent calendars with their daily dose of dairymilk simply do not compare to the glittery memories of childhood.  So I found myself wondering:  what does my goddaughter make of her ‘High School Musical’ Advent calendar.  Any disappointment I felt on seeing the cardboard box printed with a not-very-exciting photo had to be held in check by the knowledge that I had failed to send her an Advent calendar myself — and the equally lamentable sense that I dare not send her an Advent calendar for fear that the sort of Advent calendar I would choose would not interest her at all.

I spent a few days ignoring the calendar:  aware of her daily journey for chocolate, not wanting to intervene.

I paid more attention to her letter to Santa, which had some modest (and not so modest) requests, and then a curious promise to leave Santa a five pound note.  I didn’t understand, and I didn’t find the chance to ask, till her mother explained that god-daughter was adamant that the £5 note in her piggy bank not be touched:  she wanted to give it to Santa so that he could get presents for the children who were poor.

She came up with this on her own, and is sticking by it.

So it made me think again:  what does a High School Musical calendar mean to a seven year old?  It would easy to assume that she is a victim of commercialism and chocolate-bribery.  But I doubt it.  She is too smart for that.  So perhaps it is about dreams:  Gabriella as role model, singing her way into happiness as she refuses to be boxed in by her intelligence and other people’s expectations of her.  Hopes and dreams and visions about the start of a new way of life.

I’m glad that her mother knows better than I do and got her a calendar that would speak the truth of Christmas.

white?

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OK, given Kate’s last comment on ‘blue?’, how do we feel about it snowing on Love Blooms Bright?

I struggle with simultaneously thinking it’s beneath us, but loving the way it floats across the blue.   Computer Kitsch is so tricky.

This blog may be quiet for a few days while I focus on the second Sunday of Advent,  and then head South to be Fairy Godmother.

Goddaughter is 7 this year.  Could anything be more fun than shopping for (with??)  a 7 year old girl for Christmas?  The boys are still a bit young to care.