Diana's blurb
I hate fireworks and always have. As a child I had to be left indoors with the dog each November 5th. My father used to buy a packet of sparklers, bend the wires into hooks and hang them on the washing line so that I could see the pretty part from indoors. There were never any bangers until my brother was old enough to take an active part in proceedings. I could not be a smoker and in fact have never even held a lit cigarette. I just cannot bear the thought of burning – even to touch the hot oven is so painful, can you imagine how it felt for Joan of Arc and others burned at the stake? Aside from this I begrudge money spent solely to go up in flames as either tobacco or fireworks.
In recent years there has been an increase in Halloween activity – the Americans have bequeathed us “trick-or-treat”. I find the whole thing disturbing on several levels. Firstly, of course, it is un-Christian, secondly it teaches youngsters to beg and threaten, thirdly it terrifies those people who do not co-operate with the treat and get eggs thrown at their doors and fourthly it is yet another chance for shops to make profit. One small bright spark of hope I saw this week was a sign over the till in Lidl’s in Morden stating that they would not sell eggs or flour to under sixteens during the last two weeks of October.
If you went into the newly refurbished Tesco’s in New Malden over the last few weeks you would have had to fight your way past, Halloween costumes and decorations, fireworks and all things Christmas (including puddings with a use-by dates in November) before getting to the milk and bread you went in for. Try and get children past that lot without buying something you do not want and cannot afford. I heard on the radio that Halloween is now the fourth biggest profit-making event for supermarkets. Why do we suddenly have to have special decorations, costumes and foods? Undoubtedly we will soon have greetings cards too!
Christmas is nearly upon us – I know Bob M is considering what form this year’s service should take. The children who this week have dressed as rather pathetic ghouls etc. and will next week be asking for a penny (or should that be a pound) for the Guy, will be back with one line of “We wish you a Merry Christmas”, which is a song not a hymn, and calling it carol singing. It bears no resemblance to the crisp, evening walk around the village with the church choir a couple of days before Christmas, carrying lanterns, singing all the verses of Christmas hymns and raising money for the roof fund or the Skopje earthquake fund. (Just for Mark, that reference!)
Do you know that you can now buy Cadbury’s Crčme Egg chocolate bars – hence not Easter eggs at all, and Hot Cross Buns are available all year round? Like the out-of-season strawberries which have no flavour and the runner beans from Africa that are stringy and as hard as old boots, our festivals have lost their individuality, they are no longer special, they are not something to be looked forward to and savoured, to be reflected on with nostalgia. Mostly God is excluded.
I do not know how to stop the rot. I am aware that this church does not have as much interest in the liturgical year as I had in my Anglican days, but I am sure we do not want to have our beliefs used as a vehicle for commercialism and petty crime. (Demanding money with menaces is illegal.) I salute those of you I know have faced down the trick-or-treaters and urge you to continue with the carol singers.
