Just An Ordinary Nativity?

‘Immensity, cloistered in thy dear womb’ 

John Donne, ‘Nativity’, (1610)

Last week, I saw tinsel haloed angels preening in the front row, swinging their net skirts back and forth as they listened for the words they knew so they could join the singing with angelic gusto. I saw shepherds use their crooks to mischievously prod at fellow actors and Bethlehem villagers emotionally overcome, not by the miraculous birth but because they missed their mum. I clapped brave little soloists and tried not to be too distracted by deafening microphone feedback and an absurd height disparity between narrators.

How to Get Rid of the Worry Monster

I had it in my hand ready to take to the till. A furry, striped, google-eyed monster with a zip mouth and an empty tummy ready to eat up all the worries. For two whole minutes, I did actually think this was a good idea to buy as a present, the idea being that your child can write down what they’re worried about and then stuff it into the worry monster’s mouth who ‘eats’ it up and makes the worry go away. The multi coloured little chap walked straight into my head and very nearly had me walking out the shop door with him under my arm when, all of a sudden, I paused and said to my shopping buddy of the day i.e. husband,

How To Have Resilience

Photo by Anish Nair on Unsplash

Thoughts after a prolonged discussion on child protection and safeguarding, a unit covered in the college course for classroom assistants.

“We need to build resilience,” said the tutor.

The words dropped down dead onto the classroom floor. No-one picked them up to put on paper. The sheer inadequacy of them in the face of what we’d been discussing for a couple of weeks seemed like trying to use hand sanitiser as an antidote for blood poisoning.

God's Giant Box Of Felt Tip Pens

I read The Silver Chair again recently, the sixth book in C S Lewis’ Narnia series, so when I spied the Narnia colouring book in a basket at home, I popped it into my suitcase, along with a tin of felt tip pens, to bring on holiday.

While flicking through the pages one evening, I decided on a quote from the book I had just finished.  

'You would not have called to me, unless I had been calling to you.'

Aslan

The Silver Chair, C S Lewis

I began to fill in the letters and shapes with my pens - grey lettering with dark highlights, light blue for the myriad cloud-like shapes floating all over the double paged outline.

As I coloured, I wondered if it could help me pray. Might the rhythm of pen on paper ease away distractions, helping create space for focus in the same way as walking often does, the simple rhythm of placing one foot in front of the other - actions connecting the physical to the spiritual.

And in the space, a thought flowed from an unseen pen held by an unseen hand.

I could pray for God to colour in the shapes of people’s lives.

We all have blank spaces within us that are waiting to be brought to life by our artist God. Vast empty plains and small overlooked corners that exist without the joy of His colour. He has an immense palette of shades and hues that He uses to fill in the outline of us that he has already drawn.

He makes us in his image but God is not just a black and white outline. He may be like that in our own profoundly inadequate idea of him but it is not the truth. God is the fullest spectrum of light, emitting an array of colour beyond the imagination and he is making us to be more like himself in order to be a living exhibition of his glory!

There is simply no room for comparison and envy in such a truth. Each one of us, living in submission to being saturated by the colour of grace and love, can truly only respond with gratitude and worship. There is freedom to be found in knowing that God takes great pleasure in his work, that he deftly tints and highlights, blends and shades with perfect understanding of his craft in order to produce living artwork worthy of being given a place in his house.

It is a tremendous privilege to be chosen by him to personally receive the fullness of such masterful creativity within ourselves. It is also an honour to be a living extension of the work, to be visual representations of God’s extraordinary colour in the world around us.

Prayer is one way of joining him in his creative work in the lives of others. We are  invited to participate in this immense and beautiful imaginative work, a work that Jesus began during his ministry and that he continues today. It is the Kingdom work of pervading lives, places and moments with the colours of eternity, his will being done on earth as it is in heaven.  As the Narnia quotation reminds us, we call to God because he has already called to us.

The outline in my Narnia colouring book isn’t complete yet. It still needs work and time. It serves as a reminder that God’s work, in us and in the world, is ongoing. When I next pick up my pens, I hope that I remember to pray for his colour to fill the empty spaces. I hope that I remember to consider the depth and breadth of God’s work. It is on display continually everywhere and in everyone if we have eyes to see it and the willingness to accept the invitation to join with him in his work.