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When I was a child I never understood the pleasure of a tidy house… why, once the Christmas guests had gone home and there was finally time to play with my presents, my mother wanted them packed away so she could hoover the carpet! Now the house is mine my perspective is different. I sat down at the weekend to possess my home in silence after the chaos of the holidays and my mind wandered back to something I heard on New Year’s Eve. Quoting Howard Thurman, the great African-American philosopher and grandson of a slave, our visiting speaker suggested to the gathered college community that its only now that Christmas is over that: ‘The Work of Christmas begins: • To find the lost • To heal the broken • To feed the hungry • To release the prisoner • To rebuild the nations • To bring peace among the peoples • To make music in the heart.’ The urgent need for this work was all around us in the candlelit chapel as she spoke – the US citizens amongst us so aware of the government being in shutdown; the British worrying about Brexit; our Congolese visitor not able to join us because of delays in announcing the result of elections in the DRC; and our Nigerian student praying fearfully for forthcoming elections in his country. But pray, we did. Together. Bringing these concerns into the silence. For the Christian there are two moments in the rhythm of prayer. Both are needed. There’s the moment of stillness, of listening, of deep communion with God and others in which the deepest concerns of the heart and of the world can be named and shared and in which the fragments of our hope can be re-membered and the horizons of our longing extended beyond what we can see… And there’s the moment for action in which, having been remade ourselves by this great love, we turn to spend ourselves again in ‘finding the lost, healing the broken, feeding the hungry, rebuilding the nations and making music in the heart.’ For me it’s not that prayer makes the work easier. It doesn’t absolve me from understanding that I’m part of the problem. And it’s not that the work is not big enough and complex enough to need the hearts, minds, souls and strength of everyone of good will on earth whether they do prayer or not. But I do think some things can only be found in silence and stillness. Some things can only be found as we open our minds to story and image and mystery. Some things can only be found in the dark by way of the stars…. Once the children go back to school and the tree is out of the house and the ordinary chaos returns, one of the challenges I think, is to find some rhythm of action and stillness - both for ourselves and for our children - so that what we choose to make our personal lives and our common life about can be guided by the most nourishing visions of what life can be; the challenge is to find a rhythm that – to use Thurman’s image – can enable the real work of Christmas to be both imagined and sustained.