i recently finished reading Terry Pratchett’s ‘A Slip of the Keyboard: Reflections on Life, Death and Hats’. 

For anyone who might live in a sucking vacuum, Terry Pratchett was my favourite fiction author and most memorably creator of the Discworld series of which there are 41 amazing books.

Sho, it’s hard to believe it’s coming up to two years since he passed away in his sleep after struggling with Alzheimer’s and this book is a really interesting gaze into a whole lot of that.

It is largely a collection of speeches or letters that he wrote to newspapers with commentary on life and work as an author and inspiration and then old age and Alzheimer’s and assisted death and more. Such an interesting read to see his perspective on some of those things.

CHRISTMAS LESSON

The extract i want to share though is part of a chapter titled ‘The Meaning of My Christmas’ – Pratchett was a renowned atheist and so it’s not so much the spiritual aspects of Christmas that he touches on as the practical. And this piece is not so much about December Christmas as that which we would do well to invest in every single day:

‘I used to be conned into not enjoying it because it was cool to say that it’s over-commercialised and then I thought, ‘But it’s fun as well!’ Now I think, what the hell, I don’t have to be cool any more. Anyway, there’s always been overindulgence at the traditional midwinter festival, whether it’s been feasting on a hog or an oven-ready turkey.

You can do Christmas your own way if you want to badly enough. And a lit bit of commercialism doesn’t do anyone any harm. After all, the Wise Men made certain they brought presents, even though the shops were crowded and hey had to get hold of some myrrh spice.

Under all the hype people do tend to be a little bit nicer to each other for a while. They lower their defences and get on with people a little bit more. So what if it’s only for Christmas? Better once a year than never.

We have a ‘non-aggression’ pact in my family. We try to buy each other something small, but which requires a lot of thought.

It’s better to ask Santa Claus for a pair of slippers for Christmas rather than peace on earth. You might actually get it.

Big, jolly fat men with beards can’t deliver world peace. That’s something we have to work at ourselves. And there is no better way at this time of year, than to start with the people next door.’

i love that. As someone who is a follower of Jesus, i completely concur with Pratchett’s contemplation. Some people choose to pray for world peace and then leave it up to God to do. But the way i understand God, He often decides to answer prayer by sending people. And so quite possibly more often than not, the answers to my prayers begin with me taking a step of some sort…

Pratchett quote