Hoping it might be so

The three of us went to the First Communion of Christmas at Holy Trinity, Dunoon. At the start of the service , just before midnight, the nativity is always censed, the baby put in the manger and then a candle lit to signify the light of the world.

Traditions of all sorts permeate Christmas - signs of our human search for certainty and continuity. We compare, contrast and count the passing years with reference to the Christmases we have lived, where and with whom.

This is one of my favourite expressions of that desire for something secure and true - Thomas Hardy's The Oxen :

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.


Happy Christmas to all blippers everywhere - and everyone else !