Lordy, what a year, eh? On both macro and micro
levels. How do I deal with it on the final Gratitude Monday? Um…
Well, here’s what I’m thankful for: that on the
trip I took because I had to use or lose three weeks of vacation, I discovered
Pousse Rapière as an apéritif. And that I bought a bottle of the orange-infused
Armagnac before I left Paris. And that—although it took hitting two Nicolas wine
shops, I found the last bottle in the 6th, apparently, and the wine
shop guy offered to put it in a box when I told him I was taking it back to the
US with me. And that it made it here—neither broken nor filched en route.
Because it makes a lovely Kir Royal apéritif and
it doesn’t look like you can buy it here.
So this is what I’ll be washing away the taste
of 2018 with.
For the rest of it, here’s Dave
Barry’s take on the year. I’m grateful for Dave, too.
One more way this year sucks. Yesterday I took
my car to the garage to get an oil change, find out why the front tires keep
deflating, find out why there’s condensate on the interior of the car and get
an estimate for replacing the SID panel, which has lost so many pixels I can’t
read the error messages.
When I made the appointment last week, I told
the Saab manager that I should probably just replace the tires. He replied that
the problem could be corrosion on the wheel, so we should check that first.
Fine.
But yesterday, after having had the car five
hours, I get a call from Lewis, presumably a mechanic, informing me that all
four tires were under-inflated, but that’s normal when temperatures drop, so I
shouldn’t worry my little-lady head over that. Me telling him that I keep
having to fill the front two tires every week because the pressure drops to
single digits just didn’t pierce his now-little-lady mentality. He also got
wound up on rotating the tires, because the newer two are on the rear, and it’s
a front-wheel drive, so why? Dude—your people did that when I had those two
tires replaced two years ago; talk to them.
I swear, we talked for fifteen minutes and all
he could do was repeat that all the tires were under-inflated and why don’t I
have them rotated? Since that doesn’t solve the issue of why the front ones deflate,
I didn’t see the point. But he just couldn’t move on from that.
Turns out Glenn the Saab manager is on vacation
and hadn’t left any notes for Lewis, who apparently is on a continuous loop of
rotating the tires and under-inflation. Also pushing hard to replace the “cabin
filter” and wiper blades. I got the distinct whiff of hard upselling, which I
don’t generally get from Glenn.
Latest word is there's "dry rot" on the interior of the two tires I told him were continually deflating, and he has to order two replacements that "match" the tires on the rear. Only now they're on the front, because he insisted on rotation. Only he held off calling me about this until the tire distributor was closed, and he can't guarantee that they'll have the new tires mounted by midday when I need the car today. So I may or may not have transportation today. Deep joy.
I’m putting off the condensate issue, which he
said involves $650 and a part that Saab discontinued; ditto the SID
replacement, which is $450. Putting them off until Glenn is back. Next year.
You know what—I have had it with this crappy
year.
For someone on my Christmas list, I ordered
four bottles of Oregon wines; two white, two red. They were very nice bottles
of wine, with high ratings, and not from the bargain rack at the Food Lion.
Apparently I made the mistake of telling the
recipient that I’d not tried any of them, so I was looking forward to her
opinions.
Because yesterday I received an email
announcing that she’s convening a session of Women Who Wine. She and five
others will gather with “appropriate cheeses, fruit, crackers and 5x8 cards for
notes from each of us about each wine. We will salute you for each bottle!”
Those four wines were for her to enjoy with
meals, not swilled down in one sitting by six people chomping crackers whose
opinions I could not give a fucking toss about. I read that email and wanted to
take back the wine.
Look, I know that once you give a gift, the recipient can do whatever they like with it, even if they like stirring ice and sugar into it. But I just can’t stop
crying over this, and I sure as hell am never sending her wine again.
I did not mention, when I wrote about Musée de
l’Armée, that I made a quick pass through the museum shop. I thought it
interesting that you can buy felt Christmas ornaments pertaining to les
Invalides (the complex of buildings of which the museum is a part).
The Dôme des Invalides houses the tomb of
Napoléon I. In all my visits to the museum I have never bothered with this.
Tombs—meh. However, he is rather a big deal, so his tomb is suitably
pretentious.
Here are ornaments shaped like Napoléon’s hat
and les Invalides:
And here’s the building IRL:
Bonaparte shares space with his son, Napoléon
François Charles Joseph (by Marie Louise of Austria). Styled the King of Rome,
the boy never ruled (except for 15 days in 1815, when he was four years old),
and died in Austria, age 21. Known as l’Aiglon (the Eaglet), his remains were
returned to France by Hitler in 1940 (except for his heart and intestines,
which stayed in Vienna, traditional resting place of Habsburgs). By that time, the
French would have preferred the return of coal mines and factories.
Anyhow, here’s a felt Aiglon:
And finally, I thought a Mme Bonaparte (Joséphine, not Marie Louise, but those empresses were fairly interchangeable)
was a nice touch:
I wasn’t going to post anything for today,
because I’ve just run out of…everything. But I saw this thread from one of the
best people on Twitter, so have this instead.
In honor of baby Jesus & his family of
refugees/immigrants, here are a 20 quick points to remember the next time a
loved one at the holiday party tries to make you fear the "illegals."
1. If US politiicians
really wanted undocumented immigration to end, they'd start locking up the
Americans who hire them. The demand for undocumented labor would swiftly end.
They never talk about that. There's a giant "Help Wanted" sign at our
border and it's not coming down.
2. The majority of
undocumented immigrants are people who overstay their visas, not illegal border
crossings. Politicians don't talk about this.
3. Undocumented immigrants
commit crimes at lower rates than US-born citizens. Legal immigrants also
commit crimes at lower rates than US-born citizens.
4. Undocumented immigrants
pay state, local & sales taxes. Over 11 billion in 2016,
6. "Illegals" is
a racist, dehumanizing, other-izing term. It's un-Christian and hypocritical -
if you drive 56 in a 55 zone, aren't you an 'illegal' too?
If you disagree, count how many other types of lawbreakers FOX News calls
"illegals."
7. Trump is an illegal.
$25 million for education fraud alone. And I don't really need to say this, but
more to come.
8. Politicians don't try
to punish people who give jobs to undocumented workers (driving down supply of
jobs) bc fear of Central American & Mexican immigrants & asylum seekers
gets massive votes & campaign donations. It's a racket.
9. From slavery to Chinese
railroad workers to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory to today's overseas
sweatshops, exploited labor by marginalized peoples has always propped up the
US economy.
Without 'illegals' you'd pay $40 for a salad.
And I know, salads don't apply to Trump.
10. Trump hires
undocumented workers. Going back to the 80s w/undocumented polish construction
workers.
The same people who exploit undocumented labor also exploit fear of the
undocumented. You're being suckered by very rich hypocrites.
11. No national Democratic
politicians have called for any legislation or policies that could ever lead to
"Open Borders."
This is important. Any politician or media figure who uses the term "open
borders" is lying.
The Bible calls that "bearing false witness."
12. They are never going to
build a wall across thousands of miles of desert, rivers and forests, private
and commercial property - while forcing Americans to give up their land under
eminent domain law.
Wall fans are arguing for big govt to seize private American property.
13. The wall will not stop
undocumented immigration. Ladders and shovels are things that will still exist.
As will America's giant "Help Wanted" sign.
14. People who support
stealing migrant children are legally still allowed to call themselves
Christian. They are not.
15. America has crumbling
roads, bridges, a deliberately underfunded public school system, neglected
infrastructure and an underfunded VA.
A guy who's hired undocumented workers wants $5billion to keep undocumented
workers from coming here for work. It's all a scam.
16. Trump promised his
supporters that Mexico would pay for the wall.
He promised you, #MAGA.
Many times. Now he literally wants you to pay for his own broken promise.
(And the majority of 2016 voters rejected it, 74 million total (HR & 3rd
parties) vs. DT's 62 million)
17. The majority of
Americans still oppose the wall. They know it's expensive, bigoted, stupid and
won't work. The majority of Americans don't hate America.
18. Undocumented
immigration has dropped to a 12-year low. There is no 'crisis' and you have
been lied to:
20. Fear of
"illegals" is a scam designed to get alarmed FOX news viewers to vote
for an agenda centered on more tax cuts for very rich people, who don't need
more tax cuts.
Bonus #21. If you don't like our drug war refugees from
Central American drug war violence seeking asylum in America then stop
supporting the drug war.
Bonus #22. It's Jesus' birthday so here's his take. From
Matthew 25, which modern RW evangelicals seriously need to read:
"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you
gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,"
Today I am grateful that it’s Christmas Eve and
I’m not at work. Our CEO magnanimously gave us both today and next Monday off;
I imagine the executive crowd wanted the day, so we all got it. Yay.
So I’m here with Bach blasting on the stereo,
clearing away the detritus of Christmas prep, scrubbing down the kitchen
(powdered sugar from cookies this time, not the encrustation of granulated from
making candy). The bird feeders are filled, the larder is likewise full; I don’t
have to go out anywhere. Yipee.
I can spend this day entirely as I choose, for
which I give thanks.
Man, this year has been a son of a bitch, hasn’t
it? And we still have another week to go before we can slam the door on it. But
it’s Christmas Eve, the end of Advent, also known as la Noche Buena and Holy Night. Which is a
lead in to today’s offering.
The poem “Minuit, Crétiens” was written (by a
wine merchant, if you’re asking) to commemorate the renovation of the local
Avignon-area church organ in 1843. It was set to music and the resulting anthem
premiered in 1847. It’s quite the show piece, and there are plenty of diva-esque
performances.
However, I feel that it’s only appropriate that
I should close out the season with the Queen of Soul singing “O Holy Night”.
Fourth Sunday in Advent for many Christians is
devoted to the Annunciation, which was what got the whole thing rolling, as it
were. The Annunciation was when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced that she’d been chosen to bring the Son of God into the world via virgin
birth.
We only have the (male) Gospel accounts of that
event and they pretty much gloss over what must have been quite the awkward conversation.
What we’re told is that, upon receiving the announcement (no discussion allowed),
Mary replies, basically, “Well, okay. I am the handmaiden of the Lord. Let’s do
it.”
A prayer for today is the Magnificat, a
canticle sung by Mary. Technically, this takes us to the
Visitation (which took place shortly after the Annunciation, thus long
before Advent, but is referenced in seasonal readings), but I am not
responsible for how this shakes out. “Magnificat” is the opening of how Mary
describes her condition to her cousin Elisabeth. “My soul doth magnify the
Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.”
We had a discussion on this canticle at
Wednesday’s eucharist about the “magnifying” thing. People kept talking about
magnifying glasses, which I think misses the point. Magnifying glasses make
things look bigger; they stay the
same size, we’re just experiencing an optical illusion. Mary tells us that she
(through her soul) will add to the Lord; amplify
him, if you will. Or perhaps she’s saying that she’ll make God manifest, and thus larger in our lives; she’ll actually
add to the Lord.
So I think we should have a Magnificat today,
and what better than J.S. Bach’s?
If you’d like the full version, here’s a
performance held at the church for which Bach composed it:
If
there’s one universal Christmas carol, “Stille Nacht” must be it; it’s the
lingua franca of the holiday. You cannot have any kind of Christmas production
without it. I’ve learned it in three different language classes; it must be
translated into scores of others. It is so embedded in Western European
sensibilities that in the two great wars of the first half of the Twentieth
Century, it is credited with spanning the combatant divide.
Since it cannot require any introduction, I’m just
going to give you a few different versions. First, representing the First World
War, we have a commercial that was produced in 2014 for the British grocery
chain Sainsbury’s, on the centenary of the Christmas Truce that occurred in the
first winter of the war, when soldiers from Germany on one side and England,
Scotland and France on the other reached out across No Man’s Land to celebrate the
holiday.
The December holidays—so family focused—are when
the men and women in uniform most feel the cold and isolation that serving in
the front lines brings. December 1914 was no exception; especially since
everyone had confidently expected that the war would be over by Christmas. It
must have been other-worldly when Allied
soldiers heard the Germans singing “Stille Nacht” and other carols across the
frozen landscape, and then seen the lights on trees perched above the
trenches. Sainsbury’s would have us believe that the overture came from the
Brits, but historical accounts agree that the Germans made those first,
dangerous moves. Up and down the trenches, front line soldiers from both sides
mingled, exchanged small tokens, played football, shared meals.
Naturally, once commanders found out about it,
threats were made and the fraternization was not repeated for the rest of the
war.
Thirty years later, there were German and
Allied (this time, American) armies facing one another across freezing turf in
Belgium. The clip I’m giving you here is from Band of Brothers, so it’s an
embellishment on Christmas Eve around Bastogne, but…it could be.
This year again, we have forces stationed in
places far away from family. I have no doubt that they will be singing this on
Monday night, wherever they are.
The
first time I heard a first-person description of depression, I was in Cary, N.C.,
cleaning the living room with the talking lamp yapping in the background. A
reporter was interviewing a woman with clinical depression, and her words
stopped me cold: It’s not that you feel bad; it’s that you feel like you’ll never feel anything other than bad. Oh,
I thought, so that’s what this is.
About
the same time, I saw an ad for a clinical trial at UNC of a new
anti-depressant, and I signed up. The doctors confirmed that yes indeedy, I had
clinical depression, so I trotted over to Chapel Hill every week or two to have
my vitals taken and answer a battery of questions, one of which was, “On a
scale of one to ten, ten being very good, how are you feeling today?” I
consistently scored myself in the two to four range. At one point, the
Hungarian doctor put down his fountain pen (this was before laptops and
internets, children) and asked (out of genuine curiosity), “On your best day
ever, what score would you give it?” I had to think hard on that one, but
eventually I said, “A seven.”
(After
several months of this, I finally asked Dr. Hungary, “At what point should I
start feeling different?” He hesitated to respond, because it was double-blind
and all. But the answer was that if I were in fact getting the drug, I should
have felt the difference long before. I was getting the placebo, so we ended my
participation then. However, for whatever reasons, that drug never made it to
the marketplace.)
I
have to tell you that three decades later, I struggle almost every day with
that unrelenting darkness that Winston Churchill referred to as the black dog.
It’s not passing through the Slough of Despond, it’s being imprisoned there
with no key to the door. Every joy is muffled, while every rejection, pain and fear is magnified. No amount of telling me to get a grip, look on the
bright side, count my blessings or anything else helps. And despite my best efforts,
medically, I’m beginning to think nothing is going to help. Ever.
When
every day is the exact same shade of charcoal, it doesn’t really matter whether
it’s Valentine’s Day, your birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving or even Christmas. You watch others diving into it, but can't muster up the energy. This tends to make the delta between the Season of Mandatory Joy that’s relentlessly shoved
down our throats by pretty much everything and everyone, and what I'm experiencing, feel like a knife
between the ribs. That's why I try to focus on the music of Advent during
December. I keep looking for the light that I often don’t believe is there for
me.
So
I get it that, for the generations of humans before the proliferation of manmade
lights, people kind of held their breath through the longer nights and made a
big splash on the night of the Winter Solstice. Bonfires, songs, feasts,
alcohol—calling on the Higher Powers to do their thing and drive back the
darkness. And why Christians co-opted those celebrations to mark the birth of the
Messiah (which more likely occurred in the Spring, if we go by the astronomical
and meteorological clues in the Gospel narratives). God-made-man = light of the
world. We can follow that light and find our way out of the Slough of Despond,
which for some is merely seasonal.
For
today’s piece, then, I’m taking a curve in this pilgrim’s progress and heading
back to the music of my youth—"Solstice Bells”, by Jethro Tull. Yes, not really Advent. My blog,
my rules, my prerogative.
When I was in Berlin recently, I stayed at a
Radisson hotel, which—in addition to the gigantic aquarium
in the atrium—had a spa and a pool somewhere on the level below the lobby.
A few times during my stay, I rode the elevator down with someone wrapped in
one of the white terrycloth guest bathrobes, who was headed for either the spa
or the pool. It’s a little disconcerting, tbh, to get on one of those glass
fishbowl jobbers and find it’s occupied by a substantial guy in a bathrobe.
I got on one time with just such a bloke. Because
the elevators at work don’t have keys inside the cars—you input your floor on a
keypad outside and an algorithm sends up JIT elevator—I often get into strange
elevators and forget to punch a destination floor. Anyway, this happened with
Robe Guy. He noticed my confusion at having gone a floor too far and said I
could check out the spa (or maybe it was the pool), but I declined.
Anyhow, another time a mother and what I took
to be her two sons—about 9 or 10 years old—were clearly headed to the pool. I
know this because the boys were completely engulfed in terrycloth robes, which
practically swept the floor. They reminded me of kids dressed up as the Three
Kings in Christmas pageants. (I wanted to get a photo of them, but reckoned that would be creepy.)
So, in honor of two of the wise men in Berlin,
let’s have “We Three Kings”, sung by a children’s choir for today’s Advent
piece. It’s not really jumping the gun, since those Magi must have been on the
road for some time before they got to Bethlehem; it’s legit.
My favorite Old Testament book is Isaiah. There’s
so much flowing beauty in that old prophet. And a lot of that beauty forms the
backbone of many carols, since he’s all about the coming of the Messiah.
Isaiah also is deployed in seasonal oratorios, including
the one most often trotted out around now. Let’s have Handel’s version of “Comfort
Ye, My People”, followed by “Ev’ry Valley”. I find the imagery of the latter striking:
Every valley shall be lifted up; every mountain and hill made low. Uneven
ground will become smooth and the rugged land a plain.” If that doesn’t comfort
the people, I don’t know what will.
Let’s make another trip to Czechia for today’s
Advent carol. It’s jumping the gun, some, because it’s about the baby in the
manger. But, look—we’re within a week of the big night, so I’m going for it.
We in the English-speaking world know “Hajej,
Nynej, Jezisku” as “The Rocking Carol”. It’s a lullaby, as sung by the animals
in the stable. They open with, “Little Jesus, sweetly sleep, do not stir, we
will lend a coat of fur,” and they promise to rock him gently.
Technically, the animals in the stable—the oxen,
the ass, the sheep brought in by the shepherds—they don’t have fur, really. But
if there were stable cats—I can see
them offering to snuggle up to the baby and purr him to sleep. Even a sheepdog—entirely
possible that, with the sheep all corralled, the dog would be off duty and overjoyed
to curl up with the infant. I love the image this conjures up in my mind.
Here’s what I take to be a Czech choir singing
it:
If you want it in English, here’s Chanticleer:
(I searched around for something from England,
but I swear all their choirs sing it at an excruciatingly slow pace. It’s a lullaby,
not a dirge.)
It’s kind of odd that—in this season of, well,
you know—I’m having a really difficult time coming up with something to be
grateful for today. I’ve tried; really, I have. It’s just…
Well, let me see what I can do.
My move to an office closer to “the team”—the ones
who disrespect me overtly and covertly and who are, by grabbing tasks that fall
within my remit and which they are unqualified to perform, steering this
project ever closer to the iceberg—has been delayed because of a comedy of errors.
This started with me checking out the target office and pointing out it was
chockablock with books and signs stating, “Do not touch these books”. Which
apparently no one in either the department or Facilities had thought to do.
There’s a long and tedious tale between that and the current “plan”, but I’m
now slated to move into a different office, which is two doors further away
from “the team”. This is not nearly far enough, but it’s something.
The concierge primary care practice that the
untruthfully-named CareFirst plan moved out of network last year is now back in-network,
and I’ve got an appointment with one of the doctors today, after skating near
the edge for the past 12 months. This is a relief, because it turns out that
finding a primary care practice accepting new patients in the District They
Call Columbia and its environs is like prospecting for gold in the Mojave. (Not
helped by CareFirst’s utterly useless “provider directory”, with its outdated
and outright false data.) So there’s that.
I determined that I still had two and a half
days of use-it-or-lose-it vacation hours on the books, so I’m taking Wednesday
through Friday off work. Coupled with us being granted Monday off as well makes
for a nice stand-down period before Christmas. I’m going to use this for some
last-minute gift-making, and nail down my list of things to burn for this year’s
El Año Viejo.
This should help with my resting bitch face in coming weeks, so it’s a good
thing.
I loved being in Europe and having that excuse
to shoot hundreds of photos. I’d completely forgotten what a joy that is. That’s
a recovered blessing, one I hope I can hold on to.
Oh—and I lost about five pounds while on that
trip; yay!
Back to Germany for today’s Advent carol, which
is about the Visitation of Mary to Elisabeth—the mother of Jesus and the mother
of John the Baptist, both miraculously pregnant. “Maria durch ein Dornwald ging”
describes Mary’s journey, and themes related to the mother and child during
this season are woven into the narrative.
We know from Luke that when Mary arrived (early
in her pregnancy), John in Elisabeth’s womb “leapt for joy” at the recognition
of the godhead Mary was carrying. So, there’s joy.
In other carols, the divinity of yet-to-be-born
Jesus is made apparent, as in “The
Cherry Tree Carol”, where he causes the eponymous tree to lower its boughs
so Mary can pick the fruit that a somewhat churlish Joseph refuses to gather
for her. In this one, as Mary walks through the woods, a thorn tree—which hasn’t
bloomed in seven years—suddenly flowers. (Possibly a reference to Elisabeth,
who had aged childless out of her fertile years becoming pregnant with John,
who was quite the thorn in the Establishment’s side, both Roman and Hebrew.)
The “thorn bush” is also a frequent Christmas symbol—in the form of roses. Lotta
carols about roses.
The part I like is that it refers to the
pregnancy by saying that Mary carries Jesus “beneath her heart”. Just as how—in
the Annunciation—she is said to have “treasured up all these things and
pondered them in her heart.” As you do when an archangel pays a call and tells
you you’ve been chosen to give [virgin] birth to the Messiah.
I’m thinking Mary’s heart must have been large,
strong and welcoming.
Anyhow, we’ll have two versions of “Maria durch
ein Dornwald ging”; first from Patricia Janečková,
she of the sublime voice, and singers from the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava
(Czech Republic).
Voces8 have a different take, so have a listen
to this one, too:
It’s Gaudete Sunday in
Advent—the day when Christians preparing for the arrival of Christ rejoice. The
other Sundays are all about hunkering down in preparation; this is when we’re
meant to cut loose a bit because we’re so close to the end of the waiting. So
it’s time for us to cut loose a bit musically, as well.
“In dulci jubilo” is a
concatenation of Latin and German text, set to music by my man Michael
Praetorius, among others—including J.S. Bach, today's choice. We know it in English as “Good Christian Men, Rejoice”.
It speaks of “our heart’s joy” in the mother’s lap, and that appeals to me.
I’m giving you two
versions. The “straight” one is from King’s College, Cambridge:
Here’s also a riff on
it by the San Francisco a capella group, Chanticleer:
I’m a big fan of
Catherine Winkworth, the extraordinarily accomplished 19th Century
English feminist who gave the Anglophone world some of the best translations of
German Lutheran hymns. Last year I gave you her Isaiah-based “Comfort,
Comfort Ye My People”, which my work colleagues and fellow Metro commuters
have heard from me for the past few days.
Today let’s have
another of her translations, “Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates”, set to the
tune “Truro”. This hymn urges us to open wide the portals of our hearts to
receive the waiting King of Glory. That’s what the season of Advent is,
although we’re often told that it’s a period when we’re doing the waiting, not the
other way round.
Last year I gave you “Wachet
auf, ruft uns die Stimme” from J.S. Bach’s cantata of the same name. It’s
possibly the über music for Advent,
which is all about preparing for the savior’s birth. The text references the
parable about the wise and foolish virgins—two groups of maidens waiting to
greet the bridegroom at a wedding. Only one group has really thought through—and
prepared for—this arrival; no prizes for guessing which one.
(Also, you can take it
as read that this is one parable that’s overdue for an update removing the
sexist framing. Or at least mention all the men at the wedding who are getting drunk
on beer, shooting craps and generally getting in the caterer’s way.)
Well, turns out that
there’s a version of “Wachet auf” by my favorite Renaissance composer, Michael
Praetorius. And here it is:
Try out both versions,
see which one speaks most clearly to you.
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 gave you last
year, 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. 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.
Today’s Advent piece is
kind of obscure. At least, I can’t find a lot of information about it. The
melody for “Bel astre que j’adore” dates to the 15th Century at
least; the text may as well.
I like it because its delicate
weaving in a minor key just appeals to me. It seems to suit cold winter nights,
when the ancients would look to the light in the sky and hope for the return of
warmth, for the sun at full strength.
Anyway, the singer
speaks of deep love for the Beautiful Star, which of course is a proxy for the
Christ child. The second verse in particular describes the divine and pure
fire that descends from heaven and fills the soul. The final verse brings in
angelic choirs singing “hymns of praise and songs of my happiness.”
Let’s return to Czechia
for today’s Advent carol. “Nesem Vám novíny” translates to “We Bring You News”,
which makes it perhaps a tad premature for Advent. (Interesting aside: if you
type Nesem Vám novíny into Google Translate, it returns “I bring you newspaper.”
That would be an entirely different carol.) The lyrics describe how Mary has
given birth, and angels and shepherds are in attendance.
So it’s a done deed.
An American scholar,
Mari R. Hofer, translated Nesem Vám novíny into an English carol in 1912. She
kept the same Bohemian folk tune. In Hofer’s version, the shepherds and angels are
being invited to the stable. I cannot attest to how loose either translation
might be; I don’t judge.
It has been said that
the entirety of Jewish holidays can be distilled down to this triad: they tried
to kill us; we won; let’s eat. Yesterday marked the last night of Hanukkah, the
eight-day commemoration of the successful conclusion of the Jewish revolt
against the Seleucids in 165 BCE. A lot of latkes have been consumed over the
past week in homes around the world, accompanied by the sound of dreidels being
spun.
The revolt was led by
Judah, known as Judah Maccabee, “Judah the Hammer”, a brilliant military leader
who employed the kinds of tactics later used by Thomas J. Jackson in the
Shenandoah Valley. Victory included rededicating the Temple in Jerusalem, which
had been desecrated under the occupation forces. In order to perform the
cleansing ritual, the Jews needed to burn pure, unadulterated olive oil in the
Temple’s menorah every night. After all the turmoil of revolution, there was
only enough of the kosher oil to last a single night, and it would take much
longer than a day to lay in a supply to fulfill this requirement.
However, the lamp was lighted
and the oil lasted for eight nights, until new oil could be brought in.
Hanukkah is the celebration of this event, combining joy at the overthrow of
tyranny with delight at the miracle of the oil. Eight nights of light in the temple, eight candles (and the shamash, the servant candle that lights all the others) on the hanukkiyah. Plus latkes and the dreidel. It’s another of those holidays
that rejoices at the triumph of light over darkness (freedom over oppression,
good over evil), and I don’t think we can have too many of these.
For today’s music, let’s
have a piece from Georg Friedrich Handel’s Judas
Maccabaeus. Rather unfortunately, the oratorio was written to honor the triumph
of the Duke of Cumberland over the rebellious Scots at Culloden in 1746. (Seriously—Cumberland’s
single win in a long and uninspiring military
career hardly equates to an upset David/Goliath victory like the Maccabees. But
Handel was sucking up to Cumberland’s father, George II, so a composer’s gotta
do what a composer’s gotta do.) But let’s not hold that against the music.
“See, the Conqu’ring
Hero Comes” has a chorus of ecstatic Judeans welcoming the victorious Judah, who
has paved the way to peace and earned their heartfelt thanks. Note that
emphasis is on female voices. That’s because the score calls for youths and
virgins to lead the crowd in proclaiming their joy. Only at the end do you get
all the Israelites chiming in.
Seems perfectly legit
to be contemplating an actual victory over oppression and a return to peace for
this week in Advent and this Gratitude Monday. That I found a concert performance
of it by Voces para la Paz is just a little bit of that miraculous oil.
Not everyone’s winter holidays are all peace,
joy and light. Expectations are impossibly high, ratcheted up by every media
outlet in the country; possibly in the entire planet. In the Western world,
consumerism is strong and we’re continually blasted (starting these days well
before Halloween) with exhortations to buy that perfect gift for everyone on
your list. Not to mention decking the halls, preparing and consuming feasts,
putting on and attending parties.
All of this only highlights wealth disparities in
our society—or even just differences in economic security. I don’t think any
other time of year so acutely plays up the delta between the haves and have
nots. Indeed—between the haves and probably never will haves.
There are calls for charity, of course; we receive
blizzards of donation requests—which puts yet another stressor on some of us,
because how can we support them all? (Also, it pisses me off some, because why
should a hungry child only receive our generosity in December, when she’s
hungry the other eleven months, too?)
In fact, Advent is meant to be a time for
preparing to receive the Messiah into our midst, a time of quiet, of
contemplation, of inward anticipation of this Gift, not the kaleidoscopically
manic whirlwind of Hallmark Movie Channel festivities this month has become.
But turning inward and reflecting in the quiet can open you up to
less-than-joyful emotions, so I get it why people would rather double down on
holiday expectations than look into the darkness. It’s something I’ve struggled
with for decades.
All this is by way of me pointing out that
focusing only on joyous music in Advent doesn’t really speak to everyone. So here’s
something for those of us who are not finding the runup to Christmas entirely felicitous. I think it's timely for Advent 2 and the theme of Peace.
It should come as no surprise that “I’ll Be
Home for Christmas” was written in 1943 (first recorded by Bing Crosby). Its
lyrics encapsulate the longing of every soldier on every side in every war for
the past millennium to be with family and friends for the quintessential
family-and-friends holiday. Its wistful melancholy contrasts sharply with the
upbeat tone of the piece my parents used to play, “Home for the Holidays”. In
the latter, regardless of the Atlantic to Pacific traffic, people will make it
home. In the former—not so much.
Josh Groban’s cover of “I’ll Be Home” is some
years old, but we still have troops in harm’s way in both Iraq and Afghanistan—and
now on our own bloody southern border. Peace is something these men and women understand profoundly. They will not be home for
Christmas—so let’s have Groban.
I’ve always felt an affinity for this song; I
think it’s because—for at least two decades—I’ve not been able to figure out
where home is.
