Get Out There This Christmas!

How are you doing? How are you feeling? I’m usually an 8.5/10 but would give myself 5.5/10 in lockdown. I feel like a caged, frustrated animal. Yet I’m aware that although we’re all in the same storm, we’re not all in the same boat – my boat’s one of the nicest, which makes me feel all the worse for being grumpy and lacking in positivity!

However, I’m determined to combat that darkness, and I want to challenge all of us to consider joining in something like the following:

It’s very simple. I’ve just bought this portable Bluetooth speaker. Now multiple times in the build-up to Christmas, a group of us will go out in the city centre and the streets around Bath to sing a carol and then share a short message of hope – which is the central theme of Christmas, innit?!

It’s not rocket science. If you’re a church leader, my mate Pat Allerton aka ‘The Portable Priest’ gives you a similar challenge.

There are huge opportunities here, let’s not miss them! I’ve checked and consulted the latest government guidelines (for readers in the UK), and this is kosher.

So many people are fearful, hopeless and depressed right now. Let’s get out there (appropriately space, of course!) and sing/speak out peace, hope and joy.

Could you do that? Ask your pastor for his/her blessing, he/she puts the word out, gather a group of fellow-frustrateds, and just go for it!

Another idea: sign up as a Deliveroo rider! That’s what I’ve done. I’ll get paid to take exercise, and I’ll get to share Hope with everyone I deliver a pizza or kebab to!

You can stop reading now, but please, seriously, what’s stopping you? Let me know how you get on.

Just don’t do a Larry Walters. The blog’s finished, but scroll down if you want to know what I mean by that…

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Few will have heard of Larry Walters. He was a 33-year-old truck driver living in San Pedro, not far from Los Angeles. On weekends he used to just sit around and watch TV. But this particular Saturday, he was bored with his usual routine, so he decided he wanted to do something. He went shopping and bought forty-two weather balloons and a deck chair. Returning home, he anchored the chair to the ground with some ropes, and then tied the weather balloons to it. When all was ready, he ensconced himself in the chair, with his air gun nestled in his lap. He then cut the ropes, and rose steadily into the sky.

Within minutes he’d attained an altitude of sixteen thousand feet. The air traffic control tower at L.A. airport reported receiving a number of garbled and incredulous messages from different pilots along the lines of, “You’re not going to believe this, but there’s man floating up here in a deck chair!” Soon Larry’s thirst for action seemed quenched, and he decided it was time to return to planet earth. He shot a number of balloons with his air gun and gradually floated downwards. Forty five minutes later he landed at Long Beach, about seven miles from where he’d taken off.

His excursion made front page news, resulting in a Timex ad and an interview on the Tonight Show. Quizzed as to his motivation for doing it, Larry Walters replied, “It was something I had to do – I couldn’t just sit there!”

Hmm… I’m so desperate not to ‘just sit there’ this Christmas and beyond.