IN THIS  BLEAK MIDWINTER 

They said there’d be snow this Christmas. They said there’d be peace on earth. 

But I’m not seeing it. 

Not when the good guys – who aren’t the good guys anymore – can’t be trusted any more than you can throw their crumbling credibility. Because like the tinsel on last years tree, there’s none of it left.

Some of course have had snow on snow on snow. But for others it was the authorities that they received – standing hard as iron. But that’s what’s to be expected with ICE that’s never welcome, always slippy, and not infrequently lethal.

Maybe war is over – if you want it. But not everyone does. Because there are those who seemingly prefer to let it linger on, endeavouring as they do so, to initiate new ones of their own – perhaps even in their own country. 

So that was Christmas – only it wasn’t. Well not entirely. Because there was somebody else, unnoticed by many, who was also involved.

And I believe in that Israelite.

Not the one indicted for war crimes in the Middle East, but the one found guilty of something far more shocking – a love that’s strong enough to die and powerful enough to give us a Christmas better than any of us deserve.