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| Tidings of comfort and joy can’t take the pain out of life | Tidings of comfort and joy can’t take the pain out of life |
| (25 days later) | |
| Fri 22 Dec 2017 06.00 GMT | |
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| My young son has never been a great sleeper. He now wakes early every day, usually some time shortly after 4am, and my wife and I take turns to go to sit with him. If we are lucky, we can get him off to sleep again after a bit. | My young son has never been a great sleeper. He now wakes early every day, usually some time shortly after 4am, and my wife and I take turns to go to sit with him. If we are lucky, we can get him off to sleep again after a bit. |
| Sometimes I lay the palm of my hand on his back. Sometimes I gently whisper the same phrase over and over: “Abba po, abba po” (“Daddy’s here” in Hebrew). And then I withdraw to my chair to wait with him. I want him to come to feel that, however much he may hate being alone and in the dark, the experience is ultimately bearable. I want my tone of voice to say, I know it’s hard. But it’s OK. Abba po. | Sometimes I lay the palm of my hand on his back. Sometimes I gently whisper the same phrase over and over: “Abba po, abba po” (“Daddy’s here” in Hebrew). And then I withdraw to my chair to wait with him. I want him to come to feel that, however much he may hate being alone and in the dark, the experience is ultimately bearable. I want my tone of voice to say, I know it’s hard. But it’s OK. Abba po. |
| From where I sit with him I can also see the church next door. Last Friday night we kept the lights on in the sanctuary because the body of my friend Michael had been laid up there, ahead of his funeral. So on my left my one-year-old was crying. And on my right the soft light through the church window reminded me of my friend’s coffin placed in front of the altar. | From where I sit with him I can also see the church next door. Last Friday night we kept the lights on in the sanctuary because the body of my friend Michael had been laid up there, ahead of his funeral. So on my left my one-year-old was crying. And on my right the soft light through the church window reminded me of my friend’s coffin placed in front of the altar. |
| In the relative calm of the south London night, punctured only by a toddler’s fury and the occasional police siren, caught between life on one side and death on the other, and soaked through with tiredness, I was no doubt highly susceptible to the pull of my emotions. In my head I kept going over Isaiah’s beautiful promise that the people who live in the dark would eventually see a great light. And so I sat with my boy and added my own tears to his. The whole experience felt intensely prayerful. Not reindeer ears and silly jumpers; this was my preparation for Christmas. | In the relative calm of the south London night, punctured only by a toddler’s fury and the occasional police siren, caught between life on one side and death on the other, and soaked through with tiredness, I was no doubt highly susceptible to the pull of my emotions. In my head I kept going over Isaiah’s beautiful promise that the people who live in the dark would eventually see a great light. And so I sat with my boy and added my own tears to his. The whole experience felt intensely prayerful. Not reindeer ears and silly jumpers; this was my preparation for Christmas. |
| Earlier in the day my art school daughter and I had built a Christmas crib out of discarded wooden pallets, filling the structure with a coat and pillow that a homeless man had left behind after sleeping a few nights on the church steps. I pegged one of my son’s old babygrows on a washing line above the makeshift crib and fixed a light underneath the grim-looking pallets to indicate the unlikely presence of something luminous. No wonder I had a Handel earworm all afternoon: “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.” | Earlier in the day my art school daughter and I had built a Christmas crib out of discarded wooden pallets, filling the structure with a coat and pillow that a homeless man had left behind after sleeping a few nights on the church steps. I pegged one of my son’s old babygrows on a washing line above the makeshift crib and fixed a light underneath the grim-looking pallets to indicate the unlikely presence of something luminous. No wonder I had a Handel earworm all afternoon: “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.” |
| Michael made a request to me when we were planning his funeral: he asked me to preach on the subject of glory. He remembered me speaking about that extraordinary Dennis Potter interview with Melvyn Bragg in which the TV dramatist – in the final stages of cancer himself – talked about his impending death enabling him to see things more clearly, including the beauty of the plum blossom outside his window: “The nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous, and if people could see that, you know. There’s no way of telling you; you have to experience it, but the glory of it, if you like, the comfort of it, the reassurance ... not that I’m interested in reassuring people – bugger that.” | Michael made a request to me when we were planning his funeral: he asked me to preach on the subject of glory. He remembered me speaking about that extraordinary Dennis Potter interview with Melvyn Bragg in which the TV dramatist – in the final stages of cancer himself – talked about his impending death enabling him to see things more clearly, including the beauty of the plum blossom outside his window: “The nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous, and if people could see that, you know. There’s no way of telling you; you have to experience it, but the glory of it, if you like, the comfort of it, the reassurance ... not that I’m interested in reassuring people – bugger that.” |
| Having found out that he too had cancer, this surprising revelation of glory obviously spoke to Michael. And how fitting that his funeral came to be in Advent, when Christians are looking out for that glory that is to be discovered in the most unlikely of places: out in a shed in Bethlehem. Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the new born king. | Having found out that he too had cancer, this surprising revelation of glory obviously spoke to Michael. And how fitting that his funeral came to be in Advent, when Christians are looking out for that glory that is to be discovered in the most unlikely of places: out in a shed in Bethlehem. Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the new born king. |
| Sitting beside my son in the early hours it occurred to me that my basic job as a priest is also to be with people when they cry and occasionally to whisper the reassurance, “Abba po” – no, not pointing to me as their father (I really don’t like being called Father Giles for that very reason) but to the God who calls us into an intimacy with Him. | Sitting beside my son in the early hours it occurred to me that my basic job as a priest is also to be with people when they cry and occasionally to whisper the reassurance, “Abba po” – no, not pointing to me as their father (I really don’t like being called Father Giles for that very reason) but to the God who calls us into an intimacy with Him. |
| And this intimacy is the astonishing thing about being invited to call God Abba. God is not distant. God is here. Yes, it is also a way of describing God that now strikes many of us as disturbingly patriarchal. And the words my son much prefers to “Abba po” are “Imma po”, Mummy’s here. The gendered bit of calling God Abba is a metaphor, the intimacy bit is not. | And this intimacy is the astonishing thing about being invited to call God Abba. God is not distant. God is here. Yes, it is also a way of describing God that now strikes many of us as disturbingly patriarchal. And the words my son much prefers to “Abba po” are “Imma po”, Mummy’s here. The gendered bit of calling God Abba is a metaphor, the intimacy bit is not. |
| This revelation does not make our nights silent or calm, as the carol has it. They often remain full of pain and tears. And there is no cheap reassurance when we cry in the dark, even at Christmas time. Potter was right: bugger that. | This revelation does not make our nights silent or calm, as the carol has it. They often remain full of pain and tears. And there is no cheap reassurance when we cry in the dark, even at Christmas time. Potter was right: bugger that. |
| Indeed, the babygrow I had pegged up over the crib looked a little too much like a crucified child, so disturbing that I nearly took it down. But I kept it there because it provided some intimation of things to come, of what would happen to this child, of what becomes of a God that gives up power and translates himself into vulnerable human form. | Indeed, the babygrow I had pegged up over the crib looked a little too much like a crucified child, so disturbing that I nearly took it down. But I kept it there because it provided some intimation of things to come, of what would happen to this child, of what becomes of a God that gives up power and translates himself into vulnerable human form. |
| But this story is for later: sufficient for now is the thought that God is with us and, for me, this feels like a gentle hand laid on my back. It changes everything, how I see things, how I am able to cope, where I pan for glory. “Abba po” is the basic message of Christmas. Or “Imma po” if you prefer. | But this story is for later: sufficient for now is the thought that God is with us and, for me, this feels like a gentle hand laid on my back. It changes everything, how I see things, how I am able to cope, where I pan for glory. “Abba po” is the basic message of Christmas. Or “Imma po” if you prefer. |
| • Giles Fraser is a Guardian columnist and priest-in-charge at St Mary’s Newington, south London | • Giles Fraser is a Guardian columnist and priest-in-charge at St Mary’s Newington, south London |
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