I first crossed that bridge when it was in its ‘experimental’ phase.  It wobbled.  In fact, it did worse than wobble.  It swung.  I didn’t like it.  I get motion sick.  I don’t like heights.  Neither do I like the prospect of falling into the icy River Thames.  Mercifully, I made it to the other side.  But my disorientation was not finished.

London’s Millennium Bridge is a marvel of engineering.  Gone are the days of its early wobble.  I don’t know what they did to it, but today it’s pretty stable (nicely played, London Tourist Board.)  Now, 23 years old, it serves millions of pedestrians a year who wish to move between the north and south banks of dear old Father Thames but who don’t have the bus fare.

Now that disorientation I mentioned…  Bridges tell a story.  They link two places, two destinations, sometimes even two cultures or ages.  And so it is with the Millennium Bridge.  The day I first crossed it, I started on the north bank.  I’d just visited St Paul’s Cathedral.  Talk about an absence of wobble!  St Paul’s has stood since 1710, and it has seen a thing or two.  One of the most iconic and stirring images of it is the 1940 photograph in which it stands firm and proud while all around is being destroyed in the Blitz.  In a crown of historic buildings and compelling stories, St Paul’s shines as a regal jewel.

At the other end of the Millennium Bridge, you’ll find an old electric power station that closed in 1981.  Today it is the Tate Modern art gallery.  You really can’t find a more uncomfortable clash of symbols than the ancient, classical beauty of the cathedral at one end of the bridge and the bewildering post-modernity of the art gallery at the other.  This bridge does more than transport you across the Thames.  It ferries you between two worlds.

Art is so subjective.   There are many people who prefer the contents of the Tate Modern to that of St Paul’s.  Some may even find the mid-century brick power station a more appealing design than the Cathedral.  I’m not one of them, but I’ve no doubt they exist.  Some may even be reading this article.  God bless you, if you are!  Here’s not the place for a debate about schools of art and, even if it were, I’m not the person to chair that debate.  Find someone who knows what they are talking about.

My Millennium Bridge experience leads me to the equally bewildering topic of Nativity Scenes.  In my article just before Christmas last year I mentioned the ‘Hipster Nativity’.  It was funny.  Google it if you haven’t seen it.

This year I’m struck by the number of Nativities that are made out of waste materials.  Below are a nativity constructed of recycled paper, one comprised of driftwood, and another formed out of discarded horseshoes.  Congrats to the brilliant artists who looked at these pieces of garbage and saw in them something and someone utterly priceless.

Then, there’s my favorite – the one at the top of this article.  A Nativity made from discarded glass, shaped and assembled by the artist SZKLO.

Out of context, you’d never see it as a Nativity scene, but there’s real order and warm beauty about it.  I don’t know how she has made pieces of old glass appear so comforting.  Maybe it’s the colors or the smooth curves.  Maybe it is the fact that you have to work hard to see it for what it is; and when you do you feel good about yourself and the holy subjects it depicts.  Whatever the reason, I’m drawn to it.

I guess that disorientation is a gift of the season.  The topsy-turvy wobble of the Incarnation leaves our heads spinning.  May you appreciate this Christmas the true shocking nature of God becoming human.  Merry Christmas.

Duncan