I’m thinking that—given the events of this year, and of course the seasonal frenzy—we all might benefit from something quiet and contemplative.
I had a restorative yoga session on Monday, and it was really helpful. For all those who missed it, here’s Kitaro, with a cut from his Best of Silk Road album, “Taklamakan Desert”. Let him take you away.
©2024 Bas Bleu
I’ve been thinking, over the past month, about the Christmas narrative. About how the Almighty decides to make his presence manifest in human form…and chooses a peasant girl at the end of the world as the woman to impregnate for this purpose.
I mean—the chroniclers (all male) are primarily Jews, so I
guess they’d set the story in their region. Okay, fine. But Judea was hardly
the center of the universe for anyone; it was always the edge of empires—Assyrian,
Babylonian, Egyptian and now Roman. Why wouldn’t the purported son of God be
born in Rome, or even Alexandria? You know, give him some street cred?
Moreover, not only is Mary a teenager from the back of
beyond, married to a carpenter, if you please—in no respect can they be said to
be quality folk—but she gives birth in a <checks notes> stable. A place
that shelters working animals. A place that has to be mucked out on the regular
but still undoubtedly reeks of manure. What kind of pedigree d’ya call this?
Not a speck of bling—at least until the Magi show up. Just
straw, oxen and poop. That’s where Christ’s life began, to be shortly followed
by the family fleeing persecution to a foreign land, where they sought asylum. I
can’t get over this.
And what I can’t get over is how really impossible this
story is in the age of the Kleptocrat (the self-confessed germophobe and lover
of gold in all its manifestations) and his followers, who purport to worship this
Christ, but have so thoroughly bought into the gospel of prosperity that their
brains must break if they try to align the arc of the son of God’s origin and
life with the notion that “God helps those that help themselves.” They vote for
billionaires to run the government because their billions are (to them) a clear
sign that God approves of them and completely ignore the notion that a God who
chose to have his son born to a Brown couple in a stable in the back-end of
empire instead of in a palace must have done so for a reason.
Revisit Jackson Browne’s “The
Rebel Jesus”, if you will.
At no time in his 33 years of life did Jesus of Nazareth
praise the wealthy or admonish his followers to grow their capital. In fact,
the one instance that I can recall in his story of him being pissed all the way
off is when he drove the money changers from the temple. We’ve come a long way
from that, where a husk of a human being who could not name one Bible verse if
you held a gun to his head is praised as a “Christian leader” by people who
attend church and actually can recite passages from the Bible. (Although, tbh,
their interpretation may be somewhat off.) Where “pastors” of mega churches in
$6k suits preach prosperity on weekly broadcasts as the chyron flashes where
you can use your credit card to donate. Where followers of Christ—born in a
stable and on the run within days—nod in agreement when the billionaires, the
husk and the pastors tell them that refugees are “poisoning the blood of the
nation” and that to save us, they must be rounded up in their millions and
deported. End of.
And I wonder, as we focus in this season on the birth of
the Savior in that stable, how these billionaires, the husk and the pastors
would rewrite that story to make it make sense in our current reality? What
would this birthplace look like—marble floors and gold-plated toilets?
Manhattan or Cape Town? World leaders coming to pay fealty live broadcast on
CNN and Fox? Maggie Haberman writing the new gospel, complete with commentary
on the maternity wardrobe?
And what message will this messiah bring?
©2024 Bas Bleu
We’ve got a two-fer today; first in my decade of Advent posts. Because, in addition to being Christmas Day, at sundown Hanukkah starts. So just as the frenzy is winding down in Christian homes around the world, Jewish families are gearing up for kids literally spinning like dreidels.
As I consider the birth of Jesus in a Bethlehem stable, it
occurs to me that most of the excitement happened in the night: baby born,
shepherds led to the manger by angels, possibly the Eastern kings
bringing gifts for the baby. Christmas morning might well have been a recovery
period. Quiet. Reflective, even.
There might have been some people peeking in—having heard
about all the nighttime visitors, they’d want to have a look at the cause. No
doubt they went away, disappointed, because just a man, woman and baby, so what’s
up with that? “There’s nowt so queer as folk, eh?”
Anyway, here’s a lullaby, which started in Czechoslovakia;
it’s from the perspective of 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 Chanticleer singing it.
And then…Tonight marks the first night of Hanukkah,
celebrating the rededication of the Second Temple at the time of the Maccabean
revolt against the Persians. Hanukkah lasts for eight nights, which is the
number of days the lamp oil stayed alight in the temple, when there was only
enough for a single day.
“Happy Joyous Hanukah” was written by Woody Guthrie, and
why not? This is a holiday that lends itself to counting, and this song does a
whole lot of it. Also, particularly in this year, we need all the light and all
the happiness and all the joy we can get.
Here are the Klezmatics performing it. I happen to like folk music and klezmer, and this is a blend of both. (Well, heavier on the folk, but whatevs.)
©2024 Bas Bleu
Our Advent pick for today goes back to 14th Century Germany, by way of one of my all-time favorite collector/composers, Michael Praetorius, with some input from our pal Martin Luther.
The text of “In Dulci Jubilo” is what’s known as macaronic:
a mashup of languages, in this case (originally) German and Latin. I don’t know
the story, but I like to think it might have been an attempt to either dress up
a vulgar (as in, not-posh, not as in risqué) German thing with some high-toned
Latin. Or to make something Latin understandable to the masses. Or possibly it
was just something resulting from folks hitting the Glühwein and not being able
to remember what language they were supposed to be using.
It came down to us via the 19th Century
translation that swaps out the German for English, retaining the Latin. We know
it as “Good Christian Men, Rejoice”. (Fun fact: when I was a kid I wondered why
all the good Christian women were excluded. Were they out fixing a meal? Or
putting the kids to bed? I did not know.) It’s also often sung in such a way as
to make me think the choristers have been hitting the Wassail—lotta glissando.
It’s also one that I very often hear performed by brass groups. It seems to
suit those instruments particularly well.
To give you an idea of the macaronic thing, here are a
couple of verses of the German version:
In dulci jubilo
nun singet und seid froh!
Unsers Herzens Wonne
leit in praesepio,
und leuchtet als die Sonne
Matris in gremio,
Alpha es et O, Alpha es et O!
O Jesu parvule
nach dir ist mir so weh!
Tröst mir mein Gemüte,
o puer optime;
durch alle deine güte,
o princeps gloriae
trahe me post te.
Here it is, sung at King's College:
The English version (kind of mid-way between German and “Good Christian Men”) goes:
In dulci jubilo
Now sing with hearts aglow
Our delight and pleasure
Lies in praesepio
Like sunshine is our treasure
Patris in gremio
Alpha es et O
Alpha es et O
O Jesu parvule
For thee I sing always
Comfort my heart’s blindness
O puer optime
With all thy loving kindness
O princeps gloriae
Trahe me post te
Trahe me post te
And, “Good Christian Men, Rejoice”:
Good Christian men, rejoice
With heart and soul and voice!
Give ye heed to what we say
News! News
Jesus Christ is born today!
Ox and ass before Him bow
And He is in the manger now
Christ is born today!
Christ is born today!
Good Christian men, rejoice
With heart and soul and voice
Now ye hear of endless bliss
Joy! Joy!
Jesus Christ was born for this
He hath ope’d the heav’nly door
And man is blessed evermore
Christ was born for this
Christ was born for this
©2024 Bas Bleu
Not gonna lie—this Christmas is a tough one for me. There’s a great, gaping chasm in my heart for the loss of my sister and I confess I’m largely going through the motions. Badly, actually. Penny had the gift of happiness—she accepted the cards she was dealt and played them with all her heart. That’s a gift I have never possessed, so I’m basically just mucking about.
However, this can be a good season for dealing with loss—if
you don’t get wound up in all the festivities, which can’t help but taste off
and wear you out. For me, holiday
lights and music can take me out of myself.
So I’m grateful for my custom of posting Advent music every
December. It makes me seek out and immerse myself in seasonal songs, which is a
blessing.
Today’s piece is Joni Mitchell singing “River”. She wrote it while living in LA, where the only thing approaching riparian status is the LA River; it won’t get you anyplace you want to go (certainly not by skating), and Mitchell knew it.
©2024 Bas Bleu
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.
(Obvs the Annunciation did not occur during Advent; that
would be weird. Weirder than the actual impregnation by the Holy Spirit. It’s
just that this is the Sunday when we reference it.)
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.”
There are often discussions about the “magnifying” thing.
People talk 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?
©2024 Bas Bleu
