1952/53 were very memorable years for me. Life up until then had been spent mainly in London, living with the smog and amongst the damaged buildings, with reconstruction going on everywhere. Despite all the damage done, there seemed to be hundreds of people everywhere and even the unsafe remains of houses were used for large families to live in, until better accommodation could be found. Queues for everything resulted in people getting to know almost everyone in the area. There was always excitement when deliveries of goods which had not been seen for a while, arrived, and the resultant rush for the queue was inevitable as only so much could be delivered, so it was on a very much “first come, first served” basis. We seemed to know everyone, there were shortages of everything, all the people appeared to work together in communities and although food was rationed and there was never enough of it, we didn’t starve.

The biggest news in 1952 was the shattering blow of the death of the king. He and his family had been a great support to the Londoners and the country and to be taken just as things were recovering for all of us was a great sadness. However, Princess Elizabeth was a real beauty and we could not have asked for more in a future queen. We did not have a television at that time, so were not so aware of the fact that she and the Duke of Edinburgh were carrying out royal duties abroad, nor the fact that her children, Charles and Ann, were left behind. Although this behaviour appears harsh now, it was quite common in those days and the man of the house was not expected to take much time with the children as he was the bread winner.

I was in the lucky position of having spent a lot of time in Central London, my grand-parents were all employed near to Buckingham Palace, so I was taken to see many of the “Changing of the Guard”, and was frequently by the gate when the King and Queen drove through. My maternal grand-father served in the Army for many years in India; when returning with the family to England in 1930’s he had been injured and was given a civilian post at the Royal Chelsea Hospital. My grandmother was employed as Chef, so many of my youngest days were spent “helping out” with the Chelsea Pensioners (as only an under five can!) I was also taken to see the parades and horses, so by the time the coronation came along, it wasn’t such a “big deal” for me. I had also had a “peep” at the Coronation coach when it was taken out of mothballs for a “refresh”, I cannot remember what they were doing to it, but the Gold on it stayed in my mind to this day. I think there must have been a sense of foreboding about the king’s health at the time, but I really cannot remember at what age I was when I was in the privileged position of seeing the coach.

At my new school there was great excitement and plans made for celebrations of the Coronation. We were such lucky children, the school was brand new, up to date with modern facilities, including indoor toilets – something the previous school sadly lacked. We were also divided up into smaller classes of about 30 children, whereas before we were altogether in one classroom. We made bunting and learned dances and songs and we all had a union jack flag to wave on the day. During the weeks coming up to the Coronation, we came home with gifts galore, including a red propelling pencil and notebook, a book about the Queen, a cup and saucer with the Coronation details on it and a teaspoon. We also had our own (rough) notebooks which we had never had before. We felt we were the luckiest children in England. I can also remember dancing around the Maypole, but only once as I think we enjoyed getting tangled up too much!

On the day of the Coronation we all had a day off and we had a street party. There were about 40 children over the age of 5, the younger ones were accompanied by their mothers. I had never, in my entire life, seen so much food, how the ladies prepared it, I shall never know, but children don’t think about that when an array of “specials” is on the table. I think a lot of the supplies were donated by the American base which was close by; as we tasted “Candy bars” for the first time. The food consisted of jelly and blancmange, lots of tinned fruit including mandarins and peaches. Fresh orange juice was on the table, with real straws to drink through. Sausage rolls and cheese straws and lots of fairy cakes of different styles, most with red, white and blue icing. Piles of sandwiches were demolished as quick as lightening – these were all white bread, containing a variety of fillings from cheese and jam to egg and cress, the mums really did us all proud – how with the meagre rations I don’t know.

About two weeks before the big event, there were roughly 12 of us girls from our street chosen to “perform” after the Coronation. We went through choreography for three songs:

• She wears Red Feathers and a Hooly Hooly Skirt,
  
• There’s a lovely lass, lives by a lovely stream and
  
• Sisters.

I was chosen with a few others to sing “She wears Red Feathers” and were set to making our “costumes” which consisted of red crepe paper, red feathers and a hair band with red flowers sown onto it.

The order of Coronation Day was as follows – detailed as well as I remember:

Not sure how the coverage of the Coronation went, but it appeared to be broken down into three sections. Everyone was invited into our house as my father had won the Football Pools and bought a TV out of the winnings. I was not impressed – everything was in black and white and I expected to see the coach in gold that I had seen years before in the Coach House. Not only that the TV screen was only about 9 inches square so the picture was very small, I couldn’t see very much between people’s legs, so was more than pleased when we were allowed to start on the food. I don’t think my father was very impressed with my reaction.

When the TV coverage was finished, everyone piled out to eat what was left of the food. That didn’t take long! Then the girls got ready for the “entertainment”. By then it had started drizzling and by the time we came out, singing our hearts out, with the choreography to match, it was pouring down. My mother was going slightly ballistic. I couldn’t understand why, as the rain was mushing our costumes which were only paper, but of course, the red dye was all over us. It wasn’t until I recently spoke to a friend who was at this “do” and she told me she was frozen, so our mothers had insisted that we kept our liberty bodices and vests on (along with our long legged brown drawers with pockets in). Imagine the sight, sexy south sea maidens in pretty red spliced skirts and bikinis with liberty bodices, vests and brown knickers underneath, all turning red with the dye out of the crepe paper.

I got used to the black and white TV, although we were only allowed to watch Andy Pandy and Muffin the Mule and a bit later on The Flower Pot Men, I was immensely proud of my father for getting the TV, although I heard later that my friend’s father had gone to see it and came back saying he wouldn’t be buying anything like that – far too small, “I will buy a 12 one“. Apparently he did this, but it took him two years to save up as it was very expensive. Personally, I preferred listening to the radio, they had special children’s programmes: Dick Barton – Special Agent and Journey into Space were two I used to try not to miss. Also, on Sundays, after a church service, there was Family Favourites which was a programme mainly for servicemen overseas – where special requests were played for them. This was followed by Billy Cotton’s Band Show, Life with the Lyons and Archie Andrews or other comedy programmes – good family listening.

Sadly, I have not managed to see “live” on TV, or attend any special Royal Event since, always otherwise occupied, but I hope to see all of the King Charles Coronation and shall stay by the TV and record as much as I can as it is well deserved, he has been a splendid “King in Waiting” and I hope he manages a long and happy reign with his Queen Camilla.

Granny Smith

By the shore, a plot of ground
Clips a ruined chapel round,
Buttressed with a grassy mound;
    Where Day and Night and Day go by
And bring no touch of human sound.

Washing of the lonely seas,
Shaking of the guardian trees,
Piping of the salted breeze;
    Day and Night and Day go by
To the endless tune of these.

Or when, as winds and waters keep
A hush more dead than any sleep,
Still morns to stiller evenings creep,
    And Day and Night and Day go by;
Here the silence is most deep.

The empty ruins, lapsed again
Into Nature’s wide domain,
Sow themselves with seed and grain
    As Day and Night and Day go by;
And hoard June’s sun and April’s rain.

Here fresh funeral tears were shed;
Now the graves are also dead;
And suckers from the ash-tree spread,
    While Day and Night and Day go by;
And stars move calmly overhead.

William Allingham 1824-1889

In the past few months, we’ve seen and heard of events that have at times been quite difficult to take in. Major floods in Pakistan and Afghanistan, torrential rains in India and Nigeria, and recently: two major earthquakes in the Middle East.

The stories and images coming out of Turkey and Syria are devastating. In the aftermath of an earthquake of 7.8 on the Richter scale in southern Turkey and Northern Syria, buildings have been flattened, and many homes have been reduced to rubble. The death toll is already well on the way to 30,000 and in the days and weeks ahead, it’s expected to climb much higher.

Such disasters are bound to cause us to wonder ‘where God is in such things?’ So this is a good time to consider the gifts that God gives to help us in the difficulties of life and especially when our worlds are quite literally turned upside down.

Many people who’ve undergone adversity, experience a new sense of belonging to each other. There’s a remarkable sense of bonding between people who’ve experienced a particular disaster and who may’ve narrowly escaped death. There may be also a sense of guilt at having survived when friends and loved ones haven’t. God can give us the gift of a new sense of belonging and closeness to each other and also to God Himself.

Often, people deal with disaster by clinging to hope, expressed in phrases such as, “We’ll get through this together.” Such statements may be made through gritted teeth, in the anguish of physical and emotional pain. However, Hope has nothing to do with wishful thinking. Hope is the gift of openness to an unseen or unimagined future. It can keep us going, even when we can’t live and act in the ways we might normally be able to. The timing of the Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami in March 2011, just before the start of the Cherry Blossom season (the Sakura season) was very important in providing hope.

A crucial gift in God’s enabling is patience. It’s hope that enables waiting patiently for what is yet to be. Those of us, who can live active lives are accustomed to being more of less competent in what we do and can find patient waiting very difficult. Patience is the slow but definite practice of hope. It’s an active and loving holding on, perhaps without any other purpose than simply remaining; it’s “being” in the here and now.

With time, however, God also gives healing. It’s remarkable how there’s so a close relationship between time and healing. With time, we discover that in fact all along healing’s been taking place. There’s healing in the very nature of things, and of course there’s also the active work of healers, agents of God.

Experiences of suffering and distress are often also times of learning. Pain’s a great teacher. Many people say that’s at such times they learned the most valuable lessons of life. In particular, the value of things. That the things for which we spend so much time, money, and effort are worth almost nothing. When one’s experienced the loss of everything, all of one’s clothes and possessions swept away by an earthquake, tsunami, flooding or whatever, what remains is life itself, one’s family, and one’s relationship with God. In times of pain, illness and patient waiting, people come to reflect on the meaning of their lives, work, and priorities.

Flowing from these gifts, it’s both interesting and deeply moving to see something else emerge. In many contexts of disaster and distress, we see the depth of human caring. Those in ministry and in the caring professions often find that people in deep grief or pain reach out in concern for others. They want to be assured that some other person is being cared for. We may marvel at that, but it can be seen as a gift emerging from the very nature of our humanity. Our pain doesn’t destroy our better selves but rather brings them to the surface. Even as he suffered, Jesus prayed for those who crucified him. From the cross, he urged John to care for his mother.

Finally, the Suffering God enables faith. This isn’t a pre-condition of the other gifts. Rather, faith may be implied in those other gifts, but neither recognized nor acknowledged. Many people in their anguish call out to God, sometimes in accusing ways, just read the Psalms for examples. Sometimes, people, who say they don’t believe in God, call out to God. In contrast many, who’ve said they believe, find they can’t call out to God. Perhaps they imagined that their faith in God would mean that nothing like this could ever happen to them.

Faith emerges as the quiet, sometimes unrecognized gift that simply keeps us going. Faith isn’t the absence of struggle and doubt. Faith insists on dealing with the truth, with reality, with life and relationship; and through that keeping-on going, faith emerges in new forms.

It may be a new quality of prayer, or a new dimension of care, or a new commitment to reach out to those less fortunate. Such faith eventually finds its voice, to speak truth in the face of easy solutions or cheap grace. It speaks of the suffering God, who can and does help us in our hour of need.

The philosopher Charles Taylor has said that we must learn to understand what it means to have faith in our world. A world that isn’t a machine, controlled by a master manipulator of the levers. No, our task is to understand what it means to be with God and God with us, in a far less controlled, less predictable, but nonetheless, created world. In such a world, we must learn the meaning of belonging. We must learn to respect the earth, as many indigenous cultures have done since time immemorial and stop thinking that we can control everything for our own benefit.

We must learn also that the world isn’t just “our environment” but is rather the context in which we live with God. In so doing, we must learn see what God is doing in the world, and learn to live with and work with that, towards the unity with God seeks and the fulfilment of creation, in which all things come to their rest, in peace and harmony with God.

Our task, then, is to learn to see what God’s doing towards that redemption and to join God. That’s our theological and practical task—and what a privilege it is to be involved with God and God’s people in this way.

Amen.

Perhaps we’ve a lot to learn from Joseph and Mary. Joseph, committing himself to listening humbly and attentively to God.
And Mary welcoming into her heart, soul and body, the mystery of Emmanuel ‘God with us’.

We might also reflect on the part that discretion played in Joseph’s and in Mary’s life. Joseph always discretely there.
And Mary, getting on with what needs to be done.

This is so beautifully captured in Donald Swan’s lovely tryptic in the Cathedral of the Isles in Millport, where I used to take services from time to time.
In that, Mary is depicted in the stable, feeding her child so discretely that you’d hardly notice.

On this the Fourth Sunday of Advent, we should ask with them:

“What happens when we allow God to intrude into our nicely laid plans and decisions?”