Leave your lambs

Today’s Advent offering should probably come closer to Christmas, because it’s about the shepherds. But I feel shepherdy now, so… Also, there’s another one slotted for later.

“Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow” was sung by African-American slaves in the ante-bellum South. It was first published as “A Christmas Plantation Song” in Slave Songs of the United States, in 1867. The songs in this collection were gathered during the War Between the States, and the melody is probably from the coastal islands off South Carolina and Georgia. A lot of those songs would have been call and response, which is how “Rise Up, Shepherd” is framed.

Back in those days so glorified now by Republicans, slaves were property, to be used and disposed of at their master’s pleasure, like cattle and sheep. White owners, almost always professing Christians, were conflicted about converting their slaves. In one respect, it made no more sense than spreading the gospel to their cattle or sheep; property’s property, duh. But in another, preaching Christ’s teachings was downright radical—all that talk about all of us one under the Lord kinda runs contrary to the whole master-slave thing. What if—and bear with me on this for a minute—what if all those black people got the notion that spiritual liberation should be followed by, you know, actual physical liberation? Scary stuff, right?

So it was not at all uncommon for colonial legislatures to enact laws to ensure clarity on this issue: white guys = free; black guys = not free. Ordained by both God and man; end of. Maryland was the first colony, in 1664, to legislate that baptism had no effect on the social status of slaves. Southern theologians intoned that slaves had no soul; ergo treating them as property was copacetic, whether baptized or not.

Just like cattle and sheep.

(For the record, there are no reports to my knowledge of plantation owners baptizing their cattle or sheep. It could have happened, I suppose, but they didn’t document it in the parish ledger.)

Generally speaking, slaves were also kept illiterate; no need to read to pick cotton, tend babies or shoe horses. Also—man, that Gospel; you do not want anyone in captivity to have free access to that sucker, to parse and to ponder and to come up with weird-ass conclusions like Jesus preached to the poor and had no particular love for the rich, and what do we make of that? No, no—none of that Protestant notion of putting the Bible into everyone’s hands so s/he can build an individual relationship with God. You might as well give the field hands guns.

Also, slaves were forbidden to gather in large numbers, where they might talk with one another, share information about their conditions and maybe discuss things that property owners would prefer that their chattel goods didn’t discuss.

So being unable to write or congregate, generations of men, women and children developed a musical code for communication with one another, across geographical and chronological boundaries. This code would be spirituals and gospel music. When you dig into some of these songs, they’re about as incendiary as it gets; they’re just cloaked in metaphor. “Follow the Drinking Gourd”, “Jacob’s Ladder”, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”—they all sound kind of meek and pious, but they’re built on pain and anger and aspirations.

And so is “Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow”. I mean, how on earth did slaveholders even hear those first two words without the hair on the backs of their necks rising? The response to the call—twice in the verses and twice again in the chorus—is literally telling the listeners to rise up. And follow that star to freedom.

This is really clever—the star followers in the Nativity story were the wise men, the three kings, the guys who’d have been identified with the slave owning class; not shepherds, who clearly align more with the slaves. Also, the star in the song is in the East, and the one slaves followed was in the North, so a bit more subterfuge. No, no, massa—don’t worry your white head; this song isn’t about slaves escaping or rebelling or anything like that. It’s all about your blue-eyed Jesus.

The song urges the shepherds/slaves to ditch their responsibilities to follow that star. I have to admit that it seems irresponsible and unshepherdly to abandon their sheep; I feel bad for the animals. But if we’re talking tobacco and cotton fields, I can totally see slipping away and hoofing it north of the Mason-Dixon line. Massa can bloody well get up and milk the cows himself. Or pay someone to do it.

In addition to the call/response framework, I also notice that “Rise Up, Shepherd” has what I call a work rhythm to it. Like sea shanties—it’s steady with a strong beat, which you could use to coordinate repetitive labor, like swinging a scythe or pulling ropes.

I do not know why I can’t find a really good recording of this for you; all the versions out there are way too far removed from the slave quarters—all laundered and pressed, with no dirt or sweat in sight. Here’s the best I could manage, from a Belgian choir.

Power to the shepherds!

Run, run, reindeer

Today is Saint Nicholas Day, the day when we commemorate the 4^th-Century bishop of Myra, one of the participants of the Council of Nicaea. 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.)

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, we’re having the “Little Saint Nick”. I must confess that I don’t find this the best example of the Beach Boys’ oeuvre, but I just feel like changing it up this year.

The shades of night are lifting

Today’s music isn’t Advent, or Christmas-related, but it is seasonal.

I probably first heard “Song for a Winter’s Night” soon after it came out on Gordon Lightfoot’s The Way I Feel album. He apparently wrote it while in Cleveland in the summer, so I suppose it was antidote to everything around him.

Lightfoot’s was the definitive recording for me for a long time, but I’ve recently taken a shine to Sarah MacLachlan’s cover. It somehow seems more hushed and filled with snow. They’re both Canadians, so they know their winter’s.

I’ll give you both and let you choose your preference.

Hair, hands and diapers

Let’s head over to the old world for today’s Advent music. Specifically, Spain, for “Los peces en el río.”

There’s not a whole lot of substance in this one—just the fairly banal activity of Mary washing and combing her hair,washing her hands and laundering diapers. And the fish. 

To tell you the truth, I’m a skosh vague about the connection between the Nativity and Mary washing her hair by the river; rivers don't appear to figure large in Nativity stories. But I’m willing to go with it. Woman's gotta do the needful, after all. And why shouldn’t fishes be excited about the birth of the Savior? The Good News isn't just for mammals, is it?

There’s no peg on when this was written or by whom, but it became popular in the second half of the 20^th Century. Here we’ve got the Mexican trio Pandora singing it.

I gave him my manger

Dogs and cats have been in the news recently. Last year, local residents in Yakutia, Siberia, found a puppy frozen in permafrost. Various tests since the discovery have revealed that the doggo was male and around two months old at death. And he’s spent 18,000 years in that frost.

Scientists are continuing to examine and run tests on the pup they named Dogor (“friend” in the Siberian language); he may be a bridge between wolves and dogs. And he’s such a good boy, yes, he is.

Also recently reported, scientists have spent a lot of research on determining what cat owners pretty much already knew: you can’t tell what a cat is feeling merely by looking at its face. (We actually get cues from sounds and body language. And whether the cat in question has puffed up like a fugu.)

So let’s have a seasonal piece about animals, shall we? I couldn’t find anything specifically about dogs or cats, although there were plenty of dogs and cats “singing” Christmas songs on YouTube. But animals featured in the Nativity, and “The Friendly Beasts” is about them. The carol itself dates back to the 12^th Century and is from France. The English lyrics were written in the 1920s.

Here’s a choir from Salt Lake City singing it.

P.S. I learned yesterday that in Iceland there’s a giant feline called the Christmas Cat. If you’re a naughty child, the Yule Cat eats you. End of.

Gratitude Monday: getting around

As I mentioned Friday, I had Thanksgiving dinner with friends I hadn’t seen since 1994. They’ve been taking a lot of cruises since I knew them, and I asked how that started up, because they weren’t big travelers back then. (Of course, their children have grown to adulthood in the past 25 years, and they retired almost two years ago. But this was still a notable change.)

Well, it seems that they started with Tae Kwon Do lessons, bought at a silent auction for two of their kids. Robert and Marlene then started taking lessons, too, and they all ended up with black belts. But they also took a trip to Seoul (as you do), and that was the first chink in the wall. Then they took dancing lessons, and the dance studio organizes trips, many of which are on cruises…

So my friends have cruised multiple times to the Caribbean (including to Havana), the Med, Italy in particular, and one mega-cruise, from Barcelona (I think) to Singapore. Their next cruise is trans-Atlantic, to Ireland, England, France and the Netherlands.

Now, I am in no way attracted to getting on a boat and leaving shore for any reason other than that a volcano is erupting and the city is about to be engulfed by pyroclastic cloud or lava. But, you know, just going through Suez would be extra primo good.

It was absolutely magical and inspiring to listen to their tales of exploration. I’m super grateful for reconnecting with Robert and Marlene, and in their honor today, we’re having “I Saw Three Ships” for our Advent piece.

This English carol dates back to at least the 17^th Century. No one really knows what’s up with the ships—the nearest body of water to Bethlehem is 20 miles away, and it’s the Dead Sea. But carol writers aren’t geographers, so we might need to go metaphorical on this one. Three, of course, is significant; the Trinity, the Magi. Maybe the ships are the camels—ships of the desert—that brought the wise men. Or perhaps they’re the coffers that held the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Whatever.

It’s best not to overanalyze these things.

I’ve always thought of “I Saw Three Ships” as being something you put the kids to singing so they’ll stay out of your hair. I mean, the lyrics aren’t deep metaphysical explorations of the Christ story. Most of the lines get repeated, and you could keep the young ‘uns going for hours just by popping in a new first line and having them respond, “On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day” till the cows come home. “Where is Waldo hiding now?” Or “Howdy Doody wet his pants.” Or “Mommy needs a cocktail, kids.” It works.

Okay, enough frivolity.

Haha, just kidding. Here’s Sting, at Durham Cathedral, giving us “I Saw Three Ships”.

Cruise on, Robert and Marlene. Cruise on.

Lord, we greet thee

Well, here we are: fourth Sunday before Christmas, so it must be Advent. Time for seasonal music as we prepare for the celebration of Christ’s birth.

It’s hard for non-Christians (and ever for a lot of self-proclaimed Christians; looking at you, evangelicals) sometimes to understand that Advent is meant to be a quiet period of reflection and contemplation, not a frenzy of mandatory jollity, festive frivolities and conspicuous consumption.

Yeah, good luck with that—we’re swimming against the tide here. But every year I do my best to pull back some, slow down (ha!) and try to consider quietude as an option.

This, of course, does not include music, so let’s strap in and get ready for 25 days of Christmas and other seasonal music. (You know I’m Catholic, not parochial.)

Usually I start out with the über Advent carol, “Veni, Veni, Emmanuel”, but not this year. Today I’m going with something you usually find later in the season (like, Christmas Eve), “O Come, All Ye Faithful”. You can see why it's not generally sung in the first days of the season; it urges the faithful to come joyfully and triumphantly to Bethlehem. Joy comes later in the cycle.

One of the later verses starts out, "God of God, light of light", and that just fills my heart. Light of light—that's precisely what we need in these dark times. So I'm in.

This version is a little, uh, showy—suitable, no doubt for the former music director of the local Episcopal church, who used to showcase the vocal stylings of his wife at every opportunity. Voctave is an acapella jazz/pop/show tune ensemble. Not normally my cup of Darjeeling, but I’m kinda fascinated by their unaltering smiles as they sing.

Now you can be, too.

(That’s not very Adventy of me, is it? Okay, I shall try harder in future. I have 24 days to reform.)