91Èȱ¬

From Rev’d Richard Coles, cleric and broadcaster:

A gloom has fallen on the Vicarage this week, as my partner and I prepare to say goodbye to the puppies, off to their new homes tomorrow. Eight weeks ago the three arrived, their mum Audrey whelping on our chapel floor as I was having tea with the Mothers’ Union. Letting them go was always part of the plan, and we resolved after reading blogs by dog owners not to bond with the new arrivals; to reduce separation anxiety, the squealing and crying when they’re taken from their mum and driven away looking helplessly from the rear window. Apparently the puppies don’t like it much either. This resolve failed after about five minutes, when we named them - Benedict, Francis and Hilda, after two Popes and a 12th Century German visionary. That was our mistake; ever since we have doted on them like new parents.  
The day their eyes opened, the day they began to squeak, their first whoopsies… all recorded faithfully on smartphones, pictures which have brought an entire commuter crowd at St Pancras to a cooing halt; have melted the hearts of battle-hardened old ladies in the post office queue; grown men, come to chop down trees and clear drains, have burst into tears at their frolicsome antics, their cute little snouts, their wiggling bottoms, up there with Kylie’s, retreating as they venture into their expanding worlds.
And what worlds: one, Hilda, is going to Paris, where I hope she will bring a little joy in dark times. A lot to ask a puppy, to lift the mood as we tip towards war, jets in the air now - boots on the ground next? - the reaper swinging his scythe.
In the churches, over the coming weeks, we will read about a displaced couple in an occupied land, a homeless family in acute housing need, insignificant victims of global politics. Around them armies clash, tyrants rule, Empires rise, and their prophets foresee in heaven a cosmic battle to end, once and for all, human strife, and foretell the coming of a fiery angel to save us, wielding an avenging sword.
What came was a baby, born in straw; tiny, vulnerable, utterly insignificant and the Prince of Peace.