I fear that we are all heavy laden this Christmastide...and not with gifts. These last several years have been wearing and painful and depressing, with not much sunshine left in our hearts, and the stretch beginning in mid-summer and ending we-have-no-clue-when has been particularly difficult in so many ways.

In my three score and nearly ten on this planet, I cannot recollect anything like it, except in hearing the stories my parents told about the roaring twenties and the massive depression which followed...until the start of World War II.

And yet....and yet, we soldier on, keeping hid the pain and fear in our hearts, whilst we wonder what's next, as we wander.

Christmas, that's what. And it really isn't about the presents and the parties, nice though they may be. It's about an unmarried couple going home and having a baby in the most humble of circumstances - an event that changed the world, an event well worthy of a lifetime of reflection.

That's what I'm going to concentrate on this Christmastide - thinking about the simplest and most powerful story on which my faith is based and is the core belief for a world-wide community of faith, in its multitude of patterns. (You may celebrate another story, but no doubt we still have much in common in terms of the people we are trying to become as we trudge on down life's path.

On Christmas Eve, the choir of King's College at Cambridge University in Cambridge England will present their "Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols."** This year, they will premiere a new carol by D Muldowney, with words by Bertold Brecht. Here is the first verse, as translated by M. Hamburger:

The night when she first gave birth

Had been cold. But in later years

She quite forgot

The frost in the dingy beams and the smoking stove

And the spasms of the afterbirth at dawn.

But above all she forgot the bitter shame

Common among the poor

Of having no privacy.

That was why in later years it became a holiday for all.

Not quite the scene we celebrate in our songs and stories and perhaps a bit hard to accept, but worth full consideration.

This year, my presents are fewer and more modest, and most of my gift budget is going to two local charities which house and feed the homeless. In these days and times, that seems right - to participate in efforts in our community to help others.

It's not bad to go back to the basics; it's positively invigorating. We won't get through these troubles alone, so keep your various communities close, and we'll get through them together, somehow.

In spite of all, a happy Christmas to you and yours...and a productive 2009.

Cheers!

**You can probably find it on a public radio station near you or on the BBC's Radio 4 web-site, beginning at 10:00 am, Eastern Standard Time or 3:00 pm in London.