Love in your heart

There have been approximately 78,344 film iterations of A Christmas Carol since it was published in 1843. One of my most favorite versions is 1988’s Scrooged, with Bill Murray playing TV network exec Frank X. Cross, a legend-in-his-own-mind asshole who doesn’t give a toss about the lives of anyone around him.

The “around him” part would extend to the entire world, BTW. He’s a slightly blotchier 80s Elon Musk without the billions but with all the ego.

His mean-spiritedness is demonstrated by putting on a live production of the Dickens story on Christmas Eve, requiring everyone involved to work through the run-up and the night. Bah, humbug!

Well, of course Cross is redeemed, with the help of the three Christmas ghosts. Instead of showing his change of heart by sending a turkey to an employee, he barges onto the set of the live broadcast and delivers a passionate plea for everyone watching to participate in the “miracle of Christmas”—caring for those they encounter, both friend and stranger. And to do it outside of the Christmas season.

“I'm not crazy.

“It's Christmas Eve.  

“It's the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer; we smile a little easier, we cheer a little more.  

“For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped we would be.  

“It's a miracle.  It's really a sort of a miracle because it happens every Christmas Eve.  And if you waste that miracle, you're going to burn for it.  

“I know what I'm talking about.  You have to…to do something.  You have to take a chance.  You do have to get involved.  

“There are people that are having trouble making make their miracle happen.  

“There are people that don't have enough to eat.  

“There are people that are cold.  

“You can go out and say hello to these people.  

“You can take an old blanket out of the closet and say, "Here."  

“You can make them a sandwich and say, "Oh by the way, here."  I get it now.   And if you give, then it can happen.  Then the miracle can happen to you.  

“It's not just the poor and the hungry; it's everybody who has got to have this miracle.  And it can happen tonight for all of you.  

“If you believe in this spirit thing, the miracle will happen, and then you'll want it to happen again tomorrow.  

“You won't be one of these bastards who says, "Christmas is once a year, and it's a fraud."  It's not.  It can happen every day.  

“You've just got to want that feeling.  And if you like it and you want it, you'll get greedy for it.  You'll want it every day of your life, and it can happen to you.  

“I believe in it now.  

“I believe it's going to happen to me now.  

“I'm ready for it.  And it's great.  It's a good feeling.  

“It's really better than I've felt in a long time.  

“I'm ready.  

“Have a Merry Christmas, everybody.”

And then they all sing “Put a Little Love in your Heart”, which is not technically a Christmas piece, but it certainly supports the theme Cross has going. And it’s something we should all be considering—the season is about love made manifest, and we can demonstrate love in so many ways.

So here’s Annie Lennox and Al Green singing “Put a Little Love in your Heart”, recorded for the Scrooged soundtrack.

May all creatures find and expand their capacity for sharing love now and throughout the year.

 

 

 

Only in my dreams

I’m pretty sure that every war begun since the year 1 BCE touted that soldiers from both sides would be home by Christmas.

Victorious, of course.

Trying to think of any that lived up to the hype, but I'm coming up empty.

Putin’s current little adventure in Ukraine was supposed to have over in three days, yet here we are, like 298 later. There will be a lot of Russian families marking the holidays without Vanya, Pasha and Mitya. And families all over Ukraine will be making do not only with their brothers and sisters at the front, but in bomb shelters, shelled-out buildings and in the cold and dark from power outages.

Merry Christmas, y’all.

Well, 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 two millennia to be with family and friends for the quintessential family-and-friends holiday. So it’s my choice for today’s Advent piece.

paints an idealized picture of what the holidays represent. It sounds a little kitschy these days, but it must have cut deep into the hearts of everyone who’d been displaced by the war.

Apparently the song’s writer couldn’t sell it to music publishers until he sang it to Bing Crosby on the golf course. Crosby liked it, and back in those days, if Crosby wanted to make a record, he did. It was a substantial hit for him in both 1943 and 1944.

Josh Groban has got a lot of mileage out of his update—voted greatest holiday recording of all time in a recent poll by readers of the San José Mercury-News. He beat out Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song”, which I’d have thought unstoppable. It’s nice, of course, although I think it just a tad manipulative weaving in messages from serving soldiers and their families. (But, in fairness, I think a little Groban goes a long way, so when I hear him I need to guard against insulin shock.)

I’m giving you Vanessa Williams singing it.

May all who cannot in fact be home for Christmas find it where they are.

 

 

Good news

Today’s Advent piece comes again from Ukraine. I truly cannot find out much about the history of “Shcho z Kyieva tai do Rusalyma” (“From Kyiv to Jerusalem”), but according to Google translate, it’s all about the joyous news of Christ.

I would like to know more about the Kyiv to Jerusalem part—more than 3600 km, which is quite a schlep. When I looked it up, here’s what Google warned:

No kidding.

I’m thinking of the people of Kyiv, and the rest of Ukraine, celebrating this season. Either occupied by hostile forces or under attack. I imagine that nothing Putin could throw at them will stop them from singing; I certainly hope not.

Here’s an ethnomusical group, Bozhychi, singing it. I have to say that they don’t look like they’re entirely having a good time, although that may be the performance style. Like Scottish dancing. Still, the harmonies are amazing.

May those who fill the air with song overpower the cacophony of war.

 

Don't let the light go out!

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. Tonight marks the first 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 will be consumed over the coming 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 we’re seeing the Ukrainian defense forces deploy against the invading Russians, of whom it is said that at the beginning of the year they were the second best army in the world, and now they’re the second best in Ukraine. Victory against the Seleucids included rededicating the Temple in Jerusalem, which had been desecrated under the occupation forces. (We’re seeing a lot of that kind of thing in areas of Ukraine that have driven out the Russian occupiers—so much pointless vengeful destruction.) 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.

This year I think the symbolism of Hanukkah, and especially the miracle of the lamps, is more important than perhaps any time in the past 80 years. The world needs to believe that there will be light in the darkness, hope amid the horrors and good that rises above evil.

My song for Hanukkah this year was written by Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul & Mary, in 1983 against the backdrop of the war in Lebanon. It seems particularly apt now. The folk group performs "Light One Candle" at their 1988 holiday concert. The visuals are as strong as the music.

May each candle add to the light that we all need so much at this time.

 

 

A new day will rise again

Today is the feast of Saint Lucy, a Sicilian martyr of the Diocletian persecutions in the Third Century. When you hear the term “Christian martyr” applied to a woman of the early years of the Church, it’s almost always a young woman whose only defense of her virginity against pagan lechers is death. And so it was for Lucy, also known as Lucia, who was burnt at the stake in Syracuse. Although she did not die until given Christian rites…

Ah, good times, eh?

Well, interestingly, Saint Lucy (whose name derives from the Latin lux, lucis; light) was taken up big time by the Nordics. Interesting, but not really surprising. For one thing, when you live in areas enshrouded by darkness for months at a time, anything relating to light is highly valued.

For another, it turns out that, in pre-Christian Scandinavia, 13 December was dedicated to Lussi, a kind of female demon, who led her followers around wreaking havoc on everyone. In the period between Lussi Night and Yule, trolls and evil spirits (possibly joined by spirits of the dead) roamed the land and committed all manner of mischief. Lussi could come down the chimney and take naughty children away.

So you can see why folks might want to wrap a saint rumored to have taken food and supplies to refugees hiding in caverns (wearing a wreath of candles on her head, so as to leave both arms free for schlepping stuff) around the Old Ones’ Lussi.

This year we have an unconscionable number of refugees—from Afghanistan, Latin America, Ukraine, Syria and other places. We could use the likes of Saint Lucia to provide comfort and comforts to them all, welcome them to their new abodes (instead of, say, flying them en masse to Rwanda), show them a human face of caritas in the bleak cold of winter wars.

Ah, a girl can dream, can’t she?

In honor of Saint Lucia, we’re having “Sankta Lucia”, performed by, uh, some church choir in Sweden.

May the light of love and generosity flood the darkness of all who are displaced from their homes.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: make us glad

If you don’t know about the Jacquie Lawson online greeting card empire, I’m sorry to hear that. More than a decade ago Lawson figured out how to monetize nostalgia for Olde England (and sometimes Scotland), with animated cards for every occasion. But where she really nails it is her Advent calendars, each year set in an idealized snow-covered village.

They work just like the IRL versions—for the first 25 days in December you click on a number and are given an experience: kids skating, someone making Christmas cake, dogs and cats rollicking about. But there’s also an interactive element—you can wrap presents, ice cookies, decorate a Christmas tree, assemble picture blocks. Just like for reals, only you never spill the little silver balls all over your kitchen or step on an ornament.

I’ve been really lucky for many years to be given the annual calendar and I confess that the rare December when it doesn’t show up in my inbox is a bit of a bummer. But this year my old choir-mate The Pundit’s Apprentice and his wife sent it to me and I was just delighted. Because this year—in addition to the usual—there are games. Like smashing ornaments, picking out words, solitaire, concentration and others. Thankfully, I have not downloaded it onto either of my work machines because I would be so tempted to spend the entire day in that Christmas room, with the fire and candles lit and the snow falling outside (extra points for the exteriors of the village being light or dark depending on your IP address’s time zone), going from game to game.

This year in particular I treasure this calendar. In past years, my older sister would send it to me. And when I visited her for the holiday, I’d open my daily surprise and also hear her in her room clicking on a puzzle or smashing ornaments, with the Christmas music in the background. (She has severe hearing loss.) So every time I click on something, I hear her in my heart and it makes me happy.

So today’s Advent piece is the “Sussex Carol”, because the Lawson village this year is somewhere in Sussex. And here’s the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, singing it.

May everyone receive gifts that connect them to loved ones as this does for me.

 

 

The love of joys unknown

We’re at Advent III, Gaudete Sunday. This is the one devoted to joy.

After two weeks of contemplation and preparation (that’s the plan, at least), this is the break in the stillness, when Christians bust a few moves and proclaim the joy of the coming of the Christ.

This year—third of the pandemic, seventh of the fascist takeover of the Republican party, unknown of the climate disaster, first of the Russo-Ukrainian war—well, asking any cognizant person to give way to joy seems like a stretch. Let’s face it: the world is just about literally a dumpster fire. And that’s scary AF.

But I think that’s precisely what we all need—that break to just take an hour, a day, a few minutes to look around you and find joy. It can be as small as a baby’s smile or as great as an amazing cloud formation when the sun hits it just right. If you mindfully give way to joy, it’s amazing how much your emotional, spiritual, mental and even physical batteries are recharged.

Therefore, today’s Advent music is “Jesus bleibet meine Freude”, known in the English-speaking world as “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring”, by J.S. Bach. Here’s the Netherlands Bach Society performing it.

May all the people of the world find joy sufficient to lighten the burdens we all carry.