Reindeer feature in our lives from the earliest years of faith; not our Christian Faith but our faith in the arrival of Father Christmas, or whatever the benevolent giver of Christmas presents is called in your family. The arrival of the mysterious gift giver is partially dependent on the good behaviour of the child, in some family traditions, but even more universally, it is dependent on the airborne sleigh. The sleigh has remarkable aerodynamic properties and yet is drawn by reindeer. Have you ever wondered what the reindeer do in the summer?
On our recent visit to Norway we found the answer. In the far northern parts of Europe, well into the arctic circle, reindeer roam freely in the countryside and come into the towns and villages. While the one pictured was in a fenced paddock, many are free to come and go as they please. We also discovered the terrible truth that reindeer behave like many other hairy mammals – they moult and look scruffy in hot weather (well, hot for the arctic circle).
According to the figures coming from the Bank of England, we are heading for an economic recession and a period of inflation. Life is showing all the signs of being tougher many people can remember. When I was my children’s age, I recall being told that although it was hard, it was nothing like as hard as in the 1930s. Doubtless in the 1930s there were corresponding stories from further back. Harder times come and go.
For many people, social media has increased the problem of image. Apart from the psychological challenges of teenagers wrestling with body image, and whatever it means to them, many of us have our profile which shows a glimpse of us, but not necessarily all of us.
We see the reindeer as majestic, ‘dashing through the snow’, part of a team of deliverers of happiness and hope to little people. We may well like to be seen by others as positive, happy and smiling; deliverers of hope, like reindeer. Just as the reindeer must rest, breed, moult and do all the other things that mammals do, so we cannot always be what we would like our image to project.
As tougher times come, as they surely will, we must not fall out with one another about how to manage but what we must remember is that there are times when it is all right to be a bit scruffy and lack-lustre. To be needy and to appear to be needy.
In harder times people require help and the freedom to ask for help. The starting point for asking for help is dispensing with the image and facing reality. Christmas for children is one day out of three hundred and sixty five (or six), otherwise, life is about growing up, being helped and adapting to change.
A Prayer
Loving God, we pray for those who are fearful about the coming winter and the cost of living. Give us the grace to drop the image, to speak the truth about how we are and what we fear; give us the generosity to reach out to help when we can and the humility to reach out to take help if it is offered. Amen.