behind the camouflage

It was in to the school again first thing today. This time the S4 pupils.

I'm glad of the chance to get in to the school. And though the time permitted is really pretty brief, it does let me get across something, I suppose.

The school are good in letting me in, and I won't take advantage of that kind gesture they make. I try and reinforce the sort of values they are keen to see accepted through the school.

So it isn't a bible-thumping, ending-with-an-altar-call type of message that I bring. It's something a lot more low-key.

Picking a part of the Christmas story (I mean, it is Christmas, so I can get away with reference to the basic Christmas narrative) and building on that in a way that's to do with today.

That sort of thing.

There was soup to be made today, of course. But I'd got that done before I went to the school.

A Christmas week special (there aren't any lunches next week) with Festive Leek and Potato and a seasonal rendering of my Tarracarrotomango which only the really adventurous dare to touch!

Not that I was here for my lunch today. I did take a quick half bowl of the soup late morning - just to check it was fine, you understand - when a couple came in for a chat and a bit to eat. It's great when people drop in. We like to make this a place where anyone feels at home.

Which is what Jesus himself was all about.

There was a lunch today along at the City Mission. Well, a branch of the City Mission, a mile or so along the road from here at West Pilton.

One of the ladies here takes a boot-load of food and other stuff along there each week from the folk who worship here. And the good people there are able to use it as part of the powerful ministry they exercise among people with many needs.

So they'd invited myself, along with this lady, to share in their Christmas lunch today. With some of the Mission regulars there as well.

A lovely lunch, which went on for a good deal longer than I'd thought it would. But what is time?!

And one of the other guests there brought a powerful, stirring message.

He's a pastor, too, in a church across the town. But his past was much like many of theirs, I guess. His Dad had been in prison. And he himself had done a stint in jail as well, for stabbing a guy. At least five times.

I think he was telling them that to let them know he understands where they as well are coming from. The cycle of violence, which seems to build a dynasty across the generations of a family's life, can, indeed, be broken.

Today, there's been a fair bit of stuff on the news about the murder of the little boy, Rys Jones. He got caught in the 'cross-fire' between two rival teenage gangs. And ended up dead when a shot was fired from a gun.

The gangs have become endemic, it seems. And the violence which is very much part of it all is a bit like one of those massive forest fires which spreads with appalling speed and devastates enormous swathes of land.

How do you stop it all?

Well, it can be done. The guy who spoke at the lunch today was living proof of that.

I didn't mind being later than I'd planned along at the school! I was glad to have been there and heard the guy and got for myself a flavour again of what the Mission here is doing.

It's run by a guy from Uganda called Tom. He does a great job. The sort of thing that Jesus always did. In among the people.

Which is what I seek to do myself, of course. Except, it's often quite a different sort of person that I'm with. No less, nor more important in the mind and heart of God.

Just different. With often really very different needs. And yet themselves so often, too, caught up in a sort of 'cycle' which is slowly, subtly starving them of life.

I was out at night in the neighbourhood, delivering Christmas cards.

We have a card we deliver to every home in our little 'patch' this time of year. A simple Christmas greeting with a note of when we worship. That sort of thing.

I knock on the doors when delivering the card. Which means I don't get far!

It's great to have the chance like that to be welcomed into people's homes.

And it isn't long once I'm in their homes and listening to their stories before I'm seeing again what needs there are. The nice suburban housing is really just a camouflage which hides a world of need.

It was into that world that Jesus was born. To meet the need.

He got behind the camouflage. And calls us to do the same.