Christmas - for that is what it is (not 'the holiday', not 'the season', not even 'yuletide') - was a happy event as ever. Watching Alex and his cousins rushing to the front of All Saints Church in Wokingham during the Christmas Eve family carol service reminded me just how important to a non-believer like me is the Christian festival of Christmas. The unaffected joy of children at hearing the familiar Christmas story being retold has a strong emotional power. John Betjeman's poem 'Christmas' (reproduced here and, of course, in Betjemen's Collected Poems) captures some of the strange feeling of wonder we non-Christians have at the significance and poetic beauty of the event being marked; that "No love that in a family dwells, No carolling in frosty air, Nor all the steeple-shaking bells Can with this single Truth compare -That God was man in Palestine And lives today in Bread and Wine".
We opened the 'tissued fripperies' as usual on Christmas Day morning and enjoyed ourselves hugely - albeit my being deaf proved a handicap to fully engaging in a family Christmas. Relatives took the time to speak slowly, asked about what was happening to me...and I have lost count of the number of thoughtful cards wishing me 'a better 2008' I have received. Whether or not Christmas is a Christian celebration hijacked by we near pagans for our own pleasure or not, it is undeniable that every year people seem, at this time of the year, to grow a little kinder, a little fonder and a little more sentimental.
I eventually got my MRI scan today, 29th December, at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead (US readers should note that all NHS hospitals are 'free', but the names of the nineteenth century foundations remain, so that the Royal Free Hospital founded in 1828 is a remaining monument to Victorian philanthropy made even better by state funding for free healthcare) . I sneaked a look at the scans, but made nothing of them, except that there seemed to be something very odd happening on one side of the head...more on that when I hear the diagnostic from the evidence.
Happy New Year for 2008.
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2 comments:
I'm glad you had a good Christmas. I, too, hope that 2008 is a better one for you...2007 has been one of the best years I've had in a long time :)
Will be interesting to hear what the MRIs show...will keep an eye out for updates! :)
Thanks Jennifer, and I am so glad for you that 2007 has been a year of such a blessing. As you know I'm still at the far end of the road leading to that point.
I wish you and your family all the very best for 2008.
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