St Mary's

A Sign of the Times

As a little girl climbed onto Santa’s lap, Santa asked the usual, “And what would you like for Christmas?”

The child stared at him open-mouthed and horrified for a minute, the gasped: “Didn’t you get my e-mail?”

It is getting harder and harder to be Santa.

In this time, leading up to Christmas, it can be a mad and frenetic time for many people. That is why this account by Michael Leunig of “Our Life in a Bizarre Secret Cult”, I find so appealing.

Our Life in a Bizarre Secret Cult

We are married. We are known as husband and wife. We don’t refer to each other as ‘my partner’. We are not ‘guys’. We don’t answer to ‘Hey,guys’. Sometimes we answer to ‘Hello, folks’. On the odd occasion, we have sardines on toast for breakfast on Saturday morning, with a dash of vinegar, a pinch of salt and a bit of pepper. These are important little details. We love going to bed early, sometimes with a piece of fruit to eat. A good sleep is one of our greatest pleasures.

We do not talk to computers. We cannot talk to computers. We can talk to dogs and cats, and we do! Quite a lot, if the truth be known. We have no knowledge whatsoever of The Simpsons, which is a lovely feeling and a rare privilege. We consistently avoid sausage sizzles, garage sales, gymnasiums, television sets and cinemas. So there you have it. This is our bizarre, secret cult.

I wonder if a lot of Michael Leunig the person is found in this account which contributes significantly to why he is the comic genius he is today.

In our world of computers, TV’s, DVD’s, iphones, ipads, ieverything, we can get lost in an ever-ending spiral away from ourselves, our true self, our deeper self, our ONE-SELF?

St Augustine said it beautifully many years ago when he wrote in his Confessions. I shared this with you only recently, speaking of God, the mysterious one life.

“You were with me, and I was not with you; you were within me and I was outside, and there I sought you, and in my deformity I rushed headlong into the well-formed things that you have made; for those beauties held me from you.”

The trappings of Christmas, the tinsel, the glamour, the presents; these beauties, as for St Augustine, can hold us from Emmanuel, the God-is-with-us, the essence and core of what Christmas is about. The celebration of this wondrous awakening of the divine in our midst, probably found more in silence – the silence Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote about in his beautiful poem ‘The Habit of Perfection’ when he wrote:

“Elected Silence, sing to me

And beat upon my whorled ear.

Pipe me to pastures still and be

The music, that I care to hear.”

This wondrous silence is found in the timeless words and music of one of our favourite carols – Silent Night, Holy Night, where all is calm and all is bright.

In the magical silence away from the material distractions in the darkness of night that the spark of presence is awakened – where and when we recognize the divine within ourselves – a birthing takes place that brings this marvelous presence, this Emmanuel, this God is with us, to a world parched and in longing for such awakenings, such birthings.

This presence, so tender and mild brings us into a heavenly peace, which is what we truly yearn for.

So beautifully expressed by St Augustine again:

“I drew in my breath, and I now pant for you; I tasted and I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your PEACE”.

So to this small and tender infant presence of Emmanuel within us all, may it bring us to the ‘sentiments” found in the Silent night, ‘the sleep in heavenly peace’; A peace for which we all yearn, A peace the world cannot give.

So little interior one of Christmas yearnings – Sleep in Heavenly Peace.