Today’s Advent carol came together about a hundred years ago, when
English composer George Ratcliffe Woodward set his lyrics to a French (secular)
dance melody by Jehan Tabourot in the 16th Century.
I confess that I cannot hear “Ding Dong Merrily on High” without
picturing the scene from “Hercule Poirot’s Christmas” where Inspector Japp is
stuck at his wife’s Welsh family’s house where everyone but him is “Gloria-ing”
to beat the band. His face, when they tuck into the second verse after a pause, is classic. Sadly, that is not available on the Interwebz, so here’s the
King’s College, Cambridge, choir singing it.
Mega shout-out to all the bell ringers in all the church towers around the world. Except for a certain Sir Mouth Almighty, who only shows up for photo ops, wearing military medals he did not earn.
My laser jet printer is running out of toner, so I had to order a
new cartridge. (Interestingly, I paid about $120 for the machine; HP is
charging $75 per cartridge. Wut?)
I went to Amazon, which had two cartridges for $23. But all the (Prime)
possibilities were to arrive in two days, and I found myself whining, “What
happened to same-day delivery? What about one-day delivery? Why
do I have to wait two days to get my printer toner?”
That got me to thinking about The Supply Chain Issues that have
Republicans foaming outrage. I also thought about World War II, and the very
real privations most of Europe experienced for six years (not to mention horrors
in East and Southeast Asia between 1932-1945). We, in the United States, had
Supply Chain Issues between 1942 and 1945; while there were grumbles and
cheats, mostly folks sucked it up and got on with things.
That made me wonder what would have happened if today’s FREEDUMB
morons were around about 80 years ago and I quickly concluded that I’d be
writing my blog in German. (Ha-ha, just kidding: there would be no blogs, no platforms
for conspiracy theories and probably no Klepto cultists because those genetic
structures would have been culled from the pool.)
Well, for today’s Advent piece, let’s have John Lennon’s “Happy
Xmas (War Is Over)”. I’d really like to think about this long, slogging war
between democracy and fascism being over.
P.S. Amazon surprised me: my toner cartridges arrived yesterday.
So I whined and moaned all for nothing.
We can’t have an Advent without Michael Praetorius; we just can’t.
So today’s entry is “Der Morgenstern ist aufgedrungen” ("The Morning Star Is Risen"), written by a Lutheran
minister named Daniel Rumpius in 1587 and set to this melody in 1609.
Rumpius pulled on an older song about the morning star waking
lovers after spending the night together; presumably they are illicit lovers,
but I don’t judge. Just goes to show you how Christians will turn all kinds of
things—Saturnalia, pagan tree worship, adulterous love—into the service of the
Gospel.
The lyrics speak of the morning star rising—perhaps prefiguring
the light of Christ—and urge people to awake to joy and prepare for the new day.
The performers are the Dresdener Kreutzchor. I bought the CD this
is on when I was there in 1999 for the Christkindlmarkt, so it has a special place in my heart.
As you know from years past, I take a somewhat small-c catholic
view of Advent music. This season covers such a vast territory of human
expression, I have to go with the flow. So today’s piece is slightly out there,
“I Yust Go Nuts for Christmas”, by Yogi Yogesson.
Yogesson was an entertainer of Norwegian ancestry who forged a
career in comedy and novelty songwriting in the 1940s and 1950s projecting a
Swedish persona. (Real name: Harry Stewart.) “I Yust Go Nuts” was his biggest hit,
and re-released by Capitol Records for a number of years at Christmas.
The part about shopping for a Christmas present for his wife reminds me of a commercial for a drug store back in the last century. Might have been Thrifty. Guy is in a frenzy rolling his shopping cart around the store, getting wrapping paper and ribbon because, "When a man gives his wife a vacuum cleaner for Christmas, nothing is too good for her."
The story of the birth of Christ is all about journeys. Mary and
Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem, for the census. The three magi “from the
East”, seeking the king, guided by a star. The holy family fleeing to Egypt, to
escape Herod’s slaughter of the innocents. A lot of miles, a lot of dust, a lot
of new scenery.
Well, when you think of it, we’re all on journeys, even if we
never live anywhere outside the county of our birth. Some of us travel externally;
some are trekking inward. Some—me, for example—both. We do it to learn, to share,
to find new perspective; to grow; to become.
So today’s Advent song is about journeys.
“Children, Go Where I Send Thee” is an African-American relation
of an old English song called “The Twelve Apostles”. It’s a counting song, with
repetitions, but it is not as deadly as “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, which I
absolutely, categorically loathe with an incandescent hatred. The artists are
The Fairfield Four, a group that has existed for a hundred years (although not
with its current members, obvs). I love this version.
You will note that the song is not about the where, but about the
how. This is an important element of journeys that we often overlook.
Hanukkah is the celebration of literally the victory of light over
darkness. It commemorates first the defeat in 160 BCE of Seleucid armies by Jewish
forces led by Judah Maccabee, which was a huge win for Jews (not so much for
Antiochus IV, tho). The light part comes from the fact that, after cleansing
Jerusalem of the Syrians and Hellenized Jews (don’t ask about the “cleansing”
part), there was only enough consecrated oil left in the Great Temple to light
the Menorah for one day. But—somehow—the oil lasted for eight days, until
another supply could be brought in.
I really like this—first, it’s always good to whup your enemies’
asses and send their occupying armies packing. (It turns out that this is a particularly
good trait to have in your national gene pool if you live in a country that’s
basically the Poland of the Middle East and you’re always in danger of being
overrun by one neighboring power or another.) But I am always here for driving
back the darkness, and I consider what it must have meant to the Maccabees, in
a Palestinian winter, to light the Temple lamp as an act of faith and thanks to
God for their triumph over their enemies.
“There’s only enough oil for a day; do we light the Menorah now or
wait?”
“We light it now; gratitude is gratitude.”
And so is this—I’m grateful for Advent, that it overlaps with
Hanukkah and that I can celebrate it all.
Hanukkah started last night, but yesterday was Advent I, and I had
to set the stage. Besides—there are eight days of Hanukkah, so I’m within
tolerance.
I’m giving you Barenaked Ladies singing “Hanukkah Blessings”. It’s
not what you’d call traditional, but I’m a fourth-generation Californian. Also,
the beat makes me think of “The Sloop John B.” and I can’t get that out of my
head.
Well, dang—it’s Advent, the period before Christmas that does not
involve shopping, eating, standing in lines or moaning about how you’re not
ready for the holidays. Advent is the time for getting ready, for
preparing or the birth of the baby in Bethlehem.
We’ve got four Sundays and a bit more to get our act together, to
gather our thoughts, count our blessings, assess how we’ve done during the
previous months and what we might do better in the coming year. You can do this
whether you’re religious or not, whether you’re Christian or not.
Many traditions mark these four weeks with contemplation, reflection
and prayer; I break out the Christmas CDs and go through way too many candles.
This first Sunday in Advent is about expectation. The prophet Isaiah
looms large, which suits me down to the ground; one of the best books in the
Old Testament. My offering for today is “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus”,
written by my man Charles Wesley in 1749 and set to “Hyfrydol”. (My preference is "Stuttgart", but I couldn't find anything passable online.)
