I am being followed by Molly everywhere at the moment since her return from the cattery. She helps me with work, and especially enjoys sitting in front of the computer screen to make life difficult!
She needs to know I am here and I will not be going anywhere. She needs assurance she is loved.
I led Advent Sunday worship this morning surrounded by Christmas lights. My lovely church has found more Christmas lights in a cupboard since last year and we have put them everywhere! Communion was served fighting past a Christmas tree. I said to someone afterwards this year I feel numb about Christmas coming and can't get my head round the rushing and the commercialism and the hype. We decided it is best to centre on the fact it is about the assurance of love, huge love, love that will not go away, love we need to know is still there when life is shit. Molly doesn't want cat prison to happen again any time soon. We don't want to be abandoned or alone or forsaken. We need to know we are loved. There is an Age UK billboard along the road from church which says "no one should be alone at Christmas." Nor any day. I despair that Christmas makes things worse for lonely people.
This assurance is needed so badly, in the world, in our lives. I spent a long time this morning over coffee discussing bombing Syria, I spent time talking with people about Christians Against Poverty. I spent time talking with a fraught husband whose wife has been in hospital for ages. Tonight I am missing our Circuit Service as I need to visit someone in Brighton who is in a bad way who needs me far more than being there.
As Advent begins this picture reminds me of the need to reassure and be reassured of the constant love of God in Christ who comes. As the priest talking to Miss Shepherd in the Lady in the Van says about absolution it is the same with divine love - "it isn''t like a bus pass, it never runs out."
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