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Yesterday I learned about Hygge. It’s brand new to me but apparently it’s going to be inescapable this Christmas. Hygge (Hoo-gah) is a Danish word that broadly translates as cosiness. It’s all about creating a warm and restful atmosphere or getting together with friends and family to enjoy the good things in life. The idea, similar to the French ‘joie de vivre’, materialises into actual cosy things: candles, cashmere socks, cinnamon buns, coffee pots. You get the drift. There are a whole range of Hygge books and gifts that will start appearing on shop shelves any day not to mention fashion ranges like Hygge slippers in felted Italian wool and tan leather. If a gathering is ‘hyggelig’ according to Danish anthropologist Jeppe Trolle Linnet (she has written extensively about Hygge) then “no one will discuss opposite opinions about politics, economic development or raising children.” While Hygge is an inbuilt part of life in the Nordic region it’s likely to be one of the ways Christmas begins earlier each year in the UK. It’s bringing the feelgood factor and fireside chic into the home as soon as the dark nights arrive.
I’m not really sure what to do with this all new information. Should I go out and buy a new supply of candles, slippers and fluffy jumpers so that I’m all ready when the first wave of Hygge hits this season? On one level all this cosy imagery seems banal and distracting when there are so many serious problems to contend with right now: the plight of refugees fleeing Mosul (aid agencies predict a mass exodus of 1.3million from the city), the threat of food price-hikes to the UK’s poorest families and a US presidential race that leaves most of us stumped for adequate adjectives.
On another level, it did make me think of rest. Not just the sleep variety, or the celebration of the ordinary moments, which Scandanavians are so good at, but the inner kind that penetrates through to weary minds and souls. Michaelmas Term, despite all the energy that new students bring to the city and the wealth of educational and cultural events laid on for us all, can be notoriously exhausting. It’s often the busiest couple of months of the year. By the time we reach mid November we’re already frazzled and the festive season is just moving into full throttle.
So perhaps over the next few weeks we can try a bit of Hygge. With a spiritual twist. Maybe we can find our own ways of creating the right environment to pause from our busyness, to try and make sense of what’s happening in our world and what we can realistically do to help. And maybe we’ll find some deep rest for ourselves at the same time. Rest that will carry us through to Christmas, whether we have cashmere socks or not.
The Revd Alan Ramsey
Acting Priest-in-charge
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| | | Michaelmas Lunches
We have a series of lunches in the Old Library during Michaelmas Term. The second one is this Sunday (23rd October) after the main morning service.
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| | Services
—Tuesdays & Thursdays at 12.15pm
Lunchtime Eucharists —
Sunday 23rd October Last Sunday after Trinity Lennox Berkeley - Missa Brevis Johannes Brahms - How lovely are thy dwellings 10.30am - Choral Eucharist Preacher - The Revd Alan Ramsey
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| | Forthcoming Concerts & Other Events
Saturday 29th October, 8pm - Consortium Novum Symphony No 2 in C Op 61 - Robert Schumann
Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in B minor Op 104 - Antonín Dvorák
Tickets £12 on the door only — Check out our website and Facebook pages.
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| | Wired: technology's ethical questions
Will a robot do your job? Will technology change our understanding of human identity? How does the Internet change our behaviour? How does technology change conflict? What technology should we not develop?
Over three evenings in Michaelmas Term we will present a discussion on how technology is revolutionising our world and what impact it might have, and consider how we might respond in terms of ethics. Each evening will include a talk, Q&A and discussion over cheese and wine. 7.30pm-9.00pm in the Vaults Cafe. |
| | The Muse: a six-part series on the creative spark
‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ – a question creative people are often asked, and which they often flounder to answer. Do we seek inspiration from the natural world, from the news, from knowledge of ourselves? Is the creative Muse an internal or external energy? This series – featuring, amongst others, award-winning poet Antony Dunn and historical drama expert Dionysios Kyropolous – will shed light on the creative processes in the arts, through talks, workshops and Q&As. Wednesdays, October 19th-November 23rd inclusive. See flyer for further details.
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| | Cold weather support for the homeless
If the forecast is for below zero on three nights running, the City Council has to provide shelter for all rough sleepers and has asked for help from Churches Together in Central Oxford (CTCO). New Road Baptist Church has offered its premises and CTCO is looking for volunteers to help set up and clear up during the day, and to welcome and be present during the evening and night. There will be professional support. As the decision will be made at 11.00am on the first day, the project needs a big pool of volunteers on which to call. If you would be ready to be on the list, please get in touch with April Hall (St Michael at the North Gate) on parish.manager@smng.onmicrosoft.com . Financial donations towards heating, lighting and incidental running costs would also be welcome.
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| | Poetry Corner
from Song For The Rainy Season
Hidden, oh hidden
in the high fog
the house we live in,
beneath the magnetic rock,
rain-, rainbow-ridden,
where blood-black
bromelias, lichens,
owls, and the lint
of the waterfalls cling,
familiar, unbidden.
Elizabeth Bishop (originally published in The New Yorker, October 8, 1960)
This week sees the start of our new series, ‘The Muse’, and Alexandra Harris’ dissemination of the weather as a source of inspiration. I have chosen, to fit with this theme, the opening of Elizabeth Bishop’s wonderful 1960 poem, ‘Song for the Rainy Season’. Listen to the alliteration she scatters so casually throughout: ‘hidden, high, house’, ‘rock, rain, rainbow-ridden’, ‘blood-black bromelias’. Far from becoming clogged, the language takes strength from repetition: a sense of solidification, of form taking substance – we move from the soft ‘h’s through the more substantial ‘r’s to, finally, the definite ‘b’s. The weather is taking over, and we are part of the transformation.
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