Gratitude Monday: Good neighbors

Snow was forecast for the District They Call Columbia yesterday. I knew most of the week that there were dire predictions, “Snow on Sunday”; I nodded and went my way. Then, Saturday afternoon I looked up from my monitor and saw that my neighbor had salted my walks, and I realized that Sunday was tomorrow!

But what I really realized was that I have a great neighbor, who includes my walk, sidewalk and even the path to the driver’s side of my car, when she salts her own walkways. I am so grateful for that.

And it made me wonder: who were the neighbors who helped the Holy Family? We know there was no room at the in at the end of their journey, but it’s 90 miles as the donkey walks from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Who took Joseph and Mary in on the nine nights of that journey; who gave hay to the donkey?

Who helped them pack up and leave Bethlehem as they fled to Egypt from Herod’s rage? That trip was more than 1200 miles; who gave them gouge on the best route—there must have been hundreds of forks in the road; who pointed them in the right direction in those places? Who helped wash the diapers? Who welcomed them to Egypt, helped them settle in, pointed out the best fruit-and-veg sellers, gave them cooking pots and bedding to get them over the move-in hump?

What about when they eventually returned to Nazareth? Were Joseph’s house and carpentry shop still empty? Were there squatters who needed evicting? What about all his tools—did they go walkabout? Did their old neighbors welcome them back with a potluck and a proper cleanout of the living space?

We don’t know, because the New Testament writers didn’t think that was worth telling us. But neighbors are important. Neighbors form the backbone of community. These days, neighbors are all that’s standing between the masked thugs of a tyrannical regime and people who are just going about their business, kinda like the Holy Family. And I am profoundly grateful for all the neighborly people.

(In fact, the people who are the targets of the thugs look a whole lot like the Holy Family in Egypt—dark-skinned, working class, speaking a different language. I find it interesting that evangelical “Christians” do not see the analogy. They also conveniently forget Matthew 25:40: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”)

In honor of all the neighbors—near and far—who help families holy and not every day, today’s Advent entry is “The Kerry Christmas Carol”. It’s based on the Irish tradition that Mary and Joseph travel every Christmas Eve, so people need to prepare to receive them properly.

As neighbors do.

Here’s Katie McMahon singing it.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

He is the Real One

Well, we’re kinda spoilt for choice today: it’s the third Sunday in Advent—Gaudete Sunday—but also at sunset tonight Jews around the world begin the celebration of Hanukkah.

What to do? Oh, what to do?

Okay, right. The Gaudete of today is meant to be a break in the solemn preparation for the birth of Christ. Advent is, at heart, a pulling away from the exterior world, making space for contemplating the gift God is about to give humanity, for reflecting on what’s surface and what’s substance. True Advent music is about anticipation and clearing the way.

Gaudete Sunday is meant to be a little opportunity to bust loose and express anticipatory joy, so you can make it all the way to the Nativity. That's why we light the rose-colored candle.

Hanukkah celebrates the retaking of Jerusalem and the reconsecration of the Second Temple during the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid empire in the Second Century BCE. The holiday lasts eight nights—commemorating how long the oil for the sacred light lasted when the temple was rededicated—and it’s a celebration that takes place in the home, not in the synagogue. But there is singing, as well as food, candles and gifts.

Here's a song from the Sephardic Jewish tradition—Mediterranean Jews, as opposed to Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe. Their language is Ladino, which has echoes of Latinate origins.

The narrative of the folksong “Kuando el rey Nimrod” contains some elements familiar to the birth of Christ—King Nimrod interprets a star shining directly over the Jewish quarter of the city; fearful of being supplanted, he orders that all male newborns be put to death. Abraham’s mother slopes off to a cave to give birth; the infant Abraham tells her to leave him, as he’ll be taken care of. When she returns 20 days later, he’s a grown man, leaping in joy. Nimrod finds out about Abraham, calls him to appear before him and then throws him in a furnace. But in a sign confirming that he is the Real One, Abraham survives, and he is known ever after as the first Jew.

(Okay—small discrepancy about how he comes from the Jewish quarter, but is the first Jew. Work with me here.)

Here’s Apollo’s Fire singing it. You might want to turn up the volume.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Out in the darkest night

Search for carols appropriate to Saint Lucy (whose martyrdom is commemorated today), and basically all the Interwebz can hawk up is “Santa Lucia”. Which I’ve given you before, along with a treatise on pre-Christian Scandinavian mythology. And look, there’s nothing wrong with reprising it, but I wanted to see what else is out there.

After all, what those Nordic folk are clinging to is that hope of light returning—very important when you’re spending 24 hours a day in frozen darkness for a few months. In the case of Saint Lucy, whose name means light, the focus is on candles—which, as you know, I am all in favor of. Especially in winter.

So I started playing with “light”, and came across the old (well, -ish) gospel song, “This Little Light of Mine”. It’s not specifically a Christmas or Advent piece, but takes its theme from Jesus telling his followers (in Matthew 5:14-16, if you’re asking) “Ye are the light of the world… Let your light shine before men, that they may see your fine works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

Basically: shut the hell up and live a life of love and decency that others will want to follow—not envy, follow. (This concept is anathema to the pastors of megachurches and their acolytes; they’re all about the gospel of prosperity and grinding down anyone who doesn’t pass the melanin test to make them appear to sit higher.) So it’s appropriate that “This Little Light” became one of the anthems of the Civil Rights movement, which we still need after all these decades.

There are plenty of versions of the song, and I was going to go with one by Etta James, but then I found this one from Odetta, which she prefaces with Marianne Williamson’s “Our Deepest Fear”. This unexpected discovery like to knocked me out; I know the poem, but I’d forgot all about it. Hearing Odetta say, “We are all meant to shine” just cut through me with surgical precision. And then she started singing.

Not Christmas, not Advent, but absolutely right for today, and absolutely the right version for me to listen to.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

The gift he gave to Emmanuel

Let me state the blindingly obvious here: it says something that when the son of God became manifest in this world, he was born to a carpenter’s wife in a stable at the backend of empire. Now, obviously this was building on and in fulfillment of Jewish prophecies, so it would have been weird if he’d showed up in a village of Picts or somewhere in Pakistan. But I’m interested in the setting more than the location.

A stable. Surrounded by animals.

I mean, that exasperated cry of every mother when her child does not live up to expectation—“Were you born in a barn?”—actually applies here. Jesus was, in fact, born in a barn.

It’s quite a turn-up from what we expect for Important People; for Powerful People. They’re born in palaces, or penthouse apartments, amidst gold and servants and the best of accoutrements. Someplace that presages the mark they’re meant to make in the world.

I imagine the stable where Mary gave birth did not meet what we today would consider hygiene standards expected for the production of milk: the floor was not hosed down with antiseptic washing fluid after the milking; among the animals in the shed there were probably both four-legged and six-legged vermin; the straw wasn’t freshly laid; and—you know, lots of ox shit. When the shepherds arrived from guarding their flocks in the clean air, they must have at least briefly thought, “Man—get a whiff of that! Are we in the right place? Were those angels having us on?”

What does that say about the belief system that introduces a divine being via the lowest, most insignificant borderline ludicrous entry point? Whose arrival is announced first to working stiffs, not the coastal elites or big wheels in mega churches? (The Magi didn’t show up for another 12 days. Yeah, they knew the prophecy, but the news first went out to herdsmen. And the animals got first viewing.)

Imma also state another blindingly obvious fact in this story: everyone—every single person—involved was non-white. Medieval and Renaissance painters created nativities using models they had to hand, but those blonde, blue-eyed madonnas are not anywhere near accurate representations of that carpenters wife. In that particular back end of empire, people were dark-skinned, brown-eyed and had the dust of hard work on them.

So the notion that good white Christians of our time can stand on their hind legs and bray about remigration for people who don’t pass the melanin or accent test in the name of that brown baby born in a cow shed is not only gobsmacking, it is also unchristian.

Thus—even though it’s a little early in the Advent cycle—today’s piece honors the creatures who first shared their space with Jesus. They behaved better than a whole lot of self-styled Christians today.

“The Friendly Beasts” probably originated in 12^th Century France. The English lyrics we use today were written by a guy named Robert Davis about 100 years ago. I’m giving you Peter, Paul & Mary singing it.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Abide with us

“O Little Town of Bethlehem” is one of the staples of school Christmas pageants. Or it was in the days when they had school Christmas pageants. I have to say that I was never enthusiastic about it because it always sounded to me like the people singing it were drunk.

However, it turns out that there’s an alternative melody for the one we sing in the US (which is “St. Louis”, by the collaborator of Phillips Brooks, the Episcopal priest who wrote the lyrics in 1868). That would be “Forest Green”, and it’s the one they sing in Great Britain. This version does not sound like the choir just spilled out of the pub at closing time, and I like it.

Here's the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, singing it. Sober as judges.

(Not, perhaps, Supreme Court justices, or judges on the 5^th Circuit. Real judges, who take their oaths and the Constitution seriously.)

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Snowflakes in the air

The American holiday classic A Charlie Brown Christmas turned 60 yesterday. Not even half an hour in length, the animated film chronicles Charlie Brown’s struggle to find “the true meaning of Christmas”, and to recover his joy.

(Pro Tip: unlike every Hallmark holiday movie made in the past 15 years, the true meaning of Christmas turns out not to be that if you’re a dishy 20-something with really great hair, come 25 December you’ll be hooked up with a hunky, good-hearted man and be on the road to happily-ever-after.)

A good deal of ACBD’s charm comes from the music written by Vince Guaraldi, and played by his instrumental trio. Today’s Advent piece is “Christmas Time Is Here”, which adds a children’s choir. It's slightly jazzy, introducing Charlie's dilemma. Linus tells it like it is.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Good morrow, masters all!

Our Advent piece for today, “Past Three O’Clock”, is a carol set to a traditional tune called “London Waits”.

And the “Waits” being referred to is a category of watchmen common in England and Scotland from Medieval times up until the 19th Century. City waites (the early spelling) patrolled the streets using musical instruments to mark the hours. (Carrying something musical also distinguished you from other bands of night-crawlers.) It’s not clear to me how they knew, precisely, what hours they were sounding, but apparently it worked quite well as a system for a number of centuries.

So, “London Waits” as a melody captures the functions of the waits of that city, and George Ratcliffe Woodward put words to it around the turn of the last century. It’s in The Cambridge Carol-Book, Being Fifty-Two Songs for Christmas, Easter, and Other Seasons, published in 1924, so it’s still somewhat new on the Christmas carol continuum, although—because of the provenance of “London Waits”, it sounds much older.

This recording is from The Bells of Dublin, by The Chieftains, and it features along with them the Renaissance Singers.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: For all below

I confess that last week was a bad one for decency, generosity and lovingkindness here in the United States. And I personally have been fighting with the pain axis of evil (hip, IT band and knee) that has not improved my forbearance (always in limited supply). So I’ve turned to Nature for my gratitude today—specifically for the sunset I encountered as I was on my way to Thanksgiving dinner..

This made me think of the old standard by our man in Wittenburg, Martin Luther, “Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her”, known in English as “From Heav’n Above”.

The text declares the descent of God, in the birth of Jesus, from heaven to earth. It’s quite stately, but also inclusive—the proclamation of grace invites all humanity to share. Luther repeats this many times; I mean—again and again. The kingdom of God is open to all.

Luther’s original melody has been embellished some by different composers, but for ornamentation and complexity similar to how God gilds the sky, you can’t do better than J.S. Bach.

Here’s the UniversitätsChor München performing it.

 

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Prepare ye

The second Sunday in Advent is focused on preparation and peace. Peace, at the moment in our world, seems rather in short supply. Notwithstanding the most corrupt organization in professional sports awarding a gaudy but pointless peace prize to the most corrupt president in US history.

So let’s go with preparation.

The musical Godspell appeared on the scene a year after Jesus Christ Superstar. The latter was flashier and way more bombastic because Andrew Lloyd Webber. But I always liked the rather whimsical hokiness of the former.

I once saw a production of the play at Cal State LA. The review I turned in to the entertainment editor of the paper I worked for was so positive, she didn’t want to run it. But it’s the kind of show that allows for the cast streaming through the audience with balloons, and I think we could use some of that kind of whimsy these days.

“Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” is John the Baptist’s call, presaging the arrival of the Messiah. So it seems legit for Advent. It's direct and simple; even evangelicals could get the message. This is from the original cast recording.

 

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Fill every stocking you find

We got our first snowfall of the season in the People’s Republic yesterday. Just in time to prepare the way for Saint Nicholas Day, which is today.

Saint Nicholas was the Fourth-Century bishop of Myra, one of the participants of the Council of Nicaea, which ruled on the divinity of Jesus as the son of God. This is actually the day he died, which makes a bit of a change for celebrations.

(Although his death is kind of a thing; at least his corpse was. Because about 600 years after he died, Italian merchants robbed his grave in Myra and took his body to Bari. I’m not touching the issues around what possesses a group of people to do that kind of stuff and expect to remain in God’s favor. But we’re certainly seeing a whole lotta loudly pious “Christians” these days doing unbelievably unchristian things in the name of Christ, so it’s definitely a thing.)

He’s the patron of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers and students. I’m trying to think of what commonalities connect those groups, but without luck.

We of course have conflated Saint Nicholas with major gift giving (which might explain the children, merchants and pawnbrokers; possibly the repentant thieves, too), via the Dutch version of his name, Sinterklaas. And today is the day (instead of the 25^th) when children in a number of countries get their gifts (if they’ve been good; if they’ve been naughty, they get coal or switches, depending on the local custom; you might even be eaten by a giant cat).

To honor the good bishop, let’s have something traditional by the hardest working man in show business. Because all children, wherever they are and whatever their national origin, deserve the hope of something good in their lives.

 

 

©2025 Bas Bleu