Tagged: baptism of jesus
What do you truly want?
We all know those songs that, if you hear them on the radio or TV by chance, then keep going round and round in your head driving you crazy!
For me – one of the worst, because I know if I hear it, it will then be repeating in my mind for days despite the fact that I really do not like it, is the debut single from the Spice Girls. Released in 1996 – and I apologise in advance to those of you who will now be singing this in your head for the rest of the day – it’s called Wannabe.
Not placed it yet? This should help – here are the words:
Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.
So tell me what you want, what you really, really want.
I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.
So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
Over and over!
And for those of you who would like to know what it was they really, really wanted – and I had to look this up:
Continue readingRead the instructions…
This Sunday (January 10th) we kept the feast of the Baptism of Christ. Here’s what I said.
As anyone in the business of selling things to the public knows, if you don’t put adequate instructions and warnings on your products then sooner or later someone will take you to court. Take food for example – manufacturers ensure that not only are all the necessary ingredients or cooking instructions are on the packet, they often go further by putting on their packaging what might seem to some of us to be the glaringly obvious.
Here are some of the most obvious instructions that I’ve collected over the years from food packaging and that I’ve found on the internet – so just in case I use the word ‘allegedly’:
- A packet of Sainsbury’s peanuts that carried the warning: contains nuts.
- A Marks and Spencer bread and butter pudding that carried the warning: Product will be hot after heating.
- A Tesco tiramisu that had printed on the bottom of the packaging: Do not turn upside down.
It’s not just food, of course. What we might think of as obvious and unnecessary warnings appear on all kinds of products:
Continue readingYou can’t always get what you want!
On the first Sunday following the feast of the Epiphany the Church keeps the feast of the Baptism of Christ. Here’s what I said.
I’ve always felt it important to keep up to date with all the important news stories – so part of my daily routine is to read a daily newspaper and listen to or watch the BBC News. And recently there has been much of what to expect in 2019.
And it appears that given the coverage it got one of the most important and newsworthy events of 2019 will be – no, I’m not going to mention Brexit – one of the most important and newsworthy events of 2019 is – the Spice Girls reunion tour. Yes – the Spice girls, or at least four of them, are getting back together.
And already my heart is sinking – how many times this year will I be forced to listen to them singing:
Yo, I’ll
tell you what I want, what I really, really want.
So tell me what you want, what you really, really want.
I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.
So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
Over and over! And for those of you who would like to know what it was they really, really wanted – and I only found this out yesterday when I looked it up:
I wanna, I
wanna,
I wanna, I wanna, (who writes this stuff?)
I wanna really, really
really wanna zigazig
No – I don’t have a clue what that means either!
A far, far better and more profound view about getting what you want came from the Rolling Stones with their song “You can’t always get what you want”, which Rolling Stones fans among you will know only too well – though I wonder how many actually know the last line of the chorus:
Continue readingI’m into something good …
The gospel for the 3rd Sunday of Epiphany this year was the wedding at Cana. Here’s the sermon preached at St John’s by Mother Anne-Marie.
I walked her home and she held my hand
I knew it couldn’t be just a one night stand
So I asked to see her next week and she told me I could
Something tells me I’m into something good!
You have to be a certain age to remember Herman’s Hermits, but that song “I’m into Something Good” gave them their first number one in 1964. The young lad in that song had read the signs. “She danced close to me like I hoped she would”, “She stuck close to me the whole night through” and “I walked her home and she held my hand”. All the signs that he was into something good! Continue reading
Follow your star home
This Sunday we kept the feast of Epiphany, transferring it from the 6th, as we are allowed to do in the Church of England. This meant that the feast of the Baptism of Christ, which it displaced, was itself transferred to Monday and celebrated with a mass. One of the things we do every year at Epiphany is bless chalk which is then taken home and used to mark the doorways to our homes. There is a very good explanation of this old European tradition here.
How many of you have taken down your Christmas decorations? Most of you, I suspect! (At this point I got people to put their hands up – only one person other than my wife and I still had them up – an Orthodox Christian who was, of course, celebrating Christmas according to the Orthodox calendar).
Well, we still have them up in the vicarage! Let my explain why! If you follow tradition you’ll at least have kept them up for twelfth night which was on Thursday, and then have taken them down on Friday, the feast of Epiphany. However, we are allowed to keep the feast of Epiphany on the nearest Sunday, so this year you can keep them up an extra two days and take them down today. Apart from the crib scene, of course – our knitted crib figures will stay up in the vicarage until Candlemas.
There’s an old superstition that if you don’t take your decorations down the day after twelfth night it will bring bad luck – apparently, the gods of the greenery might escape and take up residence in your house. Continue reading
What the priest I live with said this Sunday – Epiphany 3
I was elsewhere this Sunday and so Mother Anne-Marie was in charge at St. John’s. Here’s her sermon.
When did Christmas begin?
When did it begin, not this last year, which in the shops was probably September, but when did it originally begin?
Well, you might want to say “When Jesus was born of course”. Well perhaps – did they have birthday parties in 1st century Palestine so in Nazareth Mary and Joseph hung up balloons and sent out invites to Jesus’s fifth birthday party and thought of age appropriate games to play, or find a children’s entertainer to invite. I doubt it! As in many societies birthdays were not remembered or celebrated in the way that we place such significance on our birth date. So Christmas didn’t begin on Jesus’s first birthday. Continue reading
View from the Valley 