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SEEING THINGS DIFFERENTLY

Canon Mark Bonney, Treasurer (Friday 1st December 2006)

Throughout Advent we juggle with trying to keep the season itself, with its wonderful sense of heightened anticipation (not just of the Incarnation, but also of the traditional Advent themes of death, judgement, heaven and hell), and also unavoidably having many Carol Services and celebrations of Christmas well before 25 December. With Christmas Day on a Monday Advent is only three weeks long, and the City Lights Service took place before Advent Sunday. There’s a degree of liturgical schizophrenic singing ‘O come all ye faithful’ one moment and ‘O come, O come Emmanuel’ the next. We debate long and hard the extent to which we go with the cultural flow and to what extent we should counter that at, and to a degree we will all see it differently. I suspect that my liturgical schizophrenia is going to be put into proportion this year, since the first part of my Advent is going to be very, very different from anything I’ve experienced before. At the time of writing I’m in eager anticipation of an adventure into the great unknown. On 8 December I go to the Sudan for ten days with Bishop Tim to further our link with the Province there, and to see how that may progress in the future. We will fly into Khartoum and work our way southwards towards the city of Juba, the seat of the Archbishop where we will be participating in the consecration of a new bishop on 17 December. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some of the Sudanese bishops who have visited us here, Andudu, Frances, Hilary and Joseph, and I’m really looking forward to seeing them again. We will not be going anywhere near Darfur, but it will be very moving to discover what it is like for Christians in areas where Islam is the predominant faith. I wonder whether I will be attending any carol services at all in the ten days, I wonder what effect a temperature of 37C has on the celebration of Advent and Christmas; so much of our liturgical round is built on Western times and seasons. I’m sure I’ll return seeing many things very differently indeed, and I look forward to sharing the experience with you.

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