Forever A Boxing Day Sale

Some years ago I read that,in the Russian Church, Christmas is a greater festival than Easter, that for them the primary fact of Christianity is the Incarnation of God.
I do not know how true this is, but I was interested to read it. And yesterday, after attending church, one of the little Revoltettes asked me 'what is the meaning of Immanuel?' 'God with us' I replied.
I suppose if we asked everybody what Christmas means to them, they would give a slightly different answer, but for me it is this; Christmas is about God being with us, not just about God walking with me, holding me up, sustaining me, but about God holding up the whole of Creation and sustaining it. God is love, and it is God's love that gives us breath and gives us meaning. God's love is eternal, and to live with God is to live eternally. It is God's love that gives light to the darkness, meaning to the chaos. Without love there is just appetite, self, and death. Without God it is never Christmas and forever a Boxing Day sale.

Robert Southwell - The Burning Babe

As I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed,
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
'Alas!' quoth he, 'but newly born in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I.
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns;
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorn;
The fuel justice layeth on, and mercy blows the coals;
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls:
For which I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.'
With this he vanished out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.

Reasons Not To Give To Oxfam

Yesterday afternoon I was in the centre of Manchester when I was approached by an employee of the charity business Oxfam. Several hours later, back in my little hovel, there was a knock at the door, and when I answered there stood another employee of the charity business Oxfam.
So, just so they do not need to bother me again, here are 4 good reasons not to give to Oxfam,
1. Only idiots give to the rich. Many Oxfam employees have a vastly greater disposable income than me. Before they give to anybody they are sure to feather their nests first.
2. They take money from governments. Their agenda is dictated by the big bureaucratic interests. They are not independent, rather part of the apparatus of social control.
3. They are racist. They constantly portray Africans as little more than helpless nincompoops, whereas it is Oxfam's masters in government who strive to keep Africa poor.
Also Oxfam are part of the bureaucratic Jew bashing brigade, disguised as anti Israeli, anti Zionism.
4. Their 'charity' is counter productive. It is designed to hide their own selfishness and that of their masters. They promote the lie that 'We' are 'good', helping the helpless. In fact, 'Aid' only drives corruption and leads to dependency. Governments of countries that receive aid feel safe to ignore their populations when services are provided by outsiders. It leaves them free to sell out their countries to foreign governments and multinationals, whilst building up reserves in Swiss bank accounts.

In Power Or In Office?

In a free society, one that is autonomous and self-regulates, governments are 'in office'. Sad to say, in a modern democracy, governments are 'in power'.
Why is that? Why is democracy just a facade for dictatorship?
Fifty years ago we were a free country, more or less. The press was unregulated, you could speak freely, and it was assumed that you were a responsible adult, once you were over the age of eighteen or twenty one. Our freedom was often attributed to the democratic political process, but in fact this was wrong. In England, freedom came with a representative Parliament and a limited government. The totalitarian concept of democracy came more from Europe and America. English liberties were more of a throwback to the Middle Ages, a holdout against the centralizing tendencies of the European despots.
But now, with liberty all but dead, the democratic state sees fit to adjust your behaviour, to monitor your actions, to limit your faith, to define your very concept of what it means to be human. Children are forced to swallow ideologies of self-loathing and degradation in what passes for education, primed for a hopeless future of debt servitude and sterility. The government is not limited, it is in power. Nothing is beyond its remit - sport and culture as well as education and health.
You can vote all you want to - you will always get the boss.

The Butcher Boy

In London City, where I did dwell,
A butcher boy I loved so well,
He courted me my heart away,
And now with me he will not stay.
There is an inn in the same town,
Where my love goes and sits him down
He takes a strange girl on his knee
And tells to her what he didn't tell me.

It's a grief to me; I'll tell you why,
Because she has more gold than I,
But her gold will melt and her silver fly;
In time of need she'll be poor as I
I wish my baby it was born
And smiling on its daddy's knee
And me poor girl to be dead and gone
With the long green grass growing over me.

'Oh, mother, mother, you do not know,
What grief and pain and sorrow and woe -
Go get a chair to sit me down
And a pen and ink to write it down.'
On every line she dropped a tear,
While calling home her Willy dear,
And when her father he came home
He said, 'Where is my daughter gone?'

He went upstairs, the door he broke -
He found her hanging upon a rope -
He took his knife and he cut her down,
And in her breast these lines were found;
'Oh what a silly maid am I!
To hang myself for a butcher boy!
Go dig my grave, both long and deep,
Place a marble stone at my head and feet,
And on my breast a turtle dove
To show the world I died for love.'

A Verse On Sunday

The Gospel According To John, Chapter 1, verse 19
'And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?'

One if the peculiarities of this Gospel is that the Jewish establishment and its supporters are referred to as 'the Jews'. Clearly John the Baptist was a Jew, as was John the Evangelist, who wrote this particular Gospel. Indeed, Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary, his friends Martha and Mary, their brother Lazarus, and all the apostles were Jews too.
In the land of Israel, in those days there were two hierarchical power structures, the military power and the ideological, priestly power. The military power was in the hands of the Romans, the priestly power in the hands of a Jewish elite, increasingly accountable to the local powers such as the Herods as well as to the Romans. A gap seems to have sprung up between the collaborationist elite and the people. It comes as no surprise to learn later in the New Testament that Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee, an establishment Jew, a moralist was a Roman citizen, just as nowadays the most moralistic, the most Politically Correct, are establishment radicals, faux revolutionaries, 'party members'.
The Levites and the priests were interested in John, for political correctness was their department. At first sight John the Baptist did not seem to threaten the 'government' the privileges of the overseer class, but you could not be too careful.
Curiously enough modern day Jews, like Reformed Christians, are perceived as a threat to Power, the principalities of this earth. Neither modern Jews, nor true Christians have a religious hierarchy, there are no priests, and so are perceived as a threat to the structures of domination. At heart, both modern Jews and Christians know no Law but the Law of God. Their dual citizenship is something that Caesar is not always prepared to put up with. Around here many churches seem to have replaced the Ten Commandments with the Equality Act of 2010, so Caesar need not worry too much.

Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

'The current generation now sees everything clearly, it marvels at the errors, it laughs at  the folly of its ancestors, not seeing that this chronicle is all over scored by divine fire, that every letter of it cries out , that from everywhere the piercing finger is pointed at it, at this current generation; but the current generation laughs, and presumptuously, proudly begins a series of new errors, at which their descendants will laugh afterwards...........

For contemporary judgement does not recognise that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation......

And so the money which to some extent may have saved the situation is spent on various means for bringing about self-oblivion.............

For every man there are certain words that are as if closer and more intimate than any others. And often, unexpectedly, in some remote forsaken backwater, some deserted desert, one meets a man whose warming conversation makes you forget the pathlessness of your paths, the homelessness of your nights, and the contemporary world full of people's stupidity, of deceptions for deceiving man. Forever and always an evening spent in this way  will vividly remain with you, and all that was and that took place then will be retained  by the faithful memory: who was there, and who stood where, and what he was holding  - the walls, the corners, and every trifle........

........nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book........

Let me warn you that if you start chasing after views, you'll be left without bread and without views.'