Gratitude Monday: Good neighbors

Snow was forecast for the District They Call Columbia yesterday. I knew most of the week that there were dire predictions, “Snow on Sunday”; I nodded and went my way. Then, Saturday afternoon I looked up from my monitor and saw that my neighbor had salted my walks, and I realized that Sunday was tomorrow!

But what I really realized was that I have a great neighbor, who includes my walk, sidewalk and even the path to the driver’s side of my car, when she salts her own walkways. I am so grateful for that.

And it made me wonder: who were the neighbors who helped the Holy Family? We know there was no room at the in at the end of their journey, but it’s 90 miles as the donkey walks from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Who took Joseph and Mary in on the nine nights of that journey; who gave hay to the donkey?

Who helped them pack up and leave Bethlehem as they fled to Egypt from Herod’s rage? That trip was more than 1200 miles; who gave them gouge on the best route—there must have been hundreds of forks in the road; who pointed them in the right direction in those places? Who helped wash the diapers? Who welcomed them to Egypt, helped them settle in, pointed out the best fruit-and-veg sellers, gave them cooking pots and bedding to get them over the move-in hump?

What about when they eventually returned to Nazareth? Were Joseph’s house and carpentry shop still empty? Were there squatters who needed evicting? What about all his tools—did they go walkabout? Did their old neighbors welcome them back with a potluck and a proper cleanout of the living space?

We don’t know, because the New Testament writers didn’t think that was worth telling us. But neighbors are important. Neighbors form the backbone of community. These days, neighbors are all that’s standing between the masked thugs of a tyrannical regime and people who are just going about their business, kinda like the Holy Family. And I am profoundly grateful for all the neighborly people.

(In fact, the people who are the targets of the thugs look a whole lot like the Holy Family in Egypt—dark-skinned, working class, speaking a different language. I find it interesting that evangelical “Christians” do not see the analogy. They also conveniently forget Matthew 25:40: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”)

In honor of all the neighbors—near and far—who help families holy and not every day, today’s Advent entry is “The Kerry Christmas Carol”. It’s based on the Irish tradition that Mary and Joseph travel every Christmas Eve, so people need to prepare to receive them properly.

As neighbors do.

Here’s Katie McMahon singing it.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

He is the Real One

Well, we’re kinda spoilt for choice today: it’s the third Sunday in Advent—Gaudete Sunday—but also at sunset tonight Jews around the world begin the celebration of Hanukkah.

What to do? Oh, what to do?

Okay, right. The Gaudete of today is meant to be a break in the solemn preparation for the birth of Christ. Advent is, at heart, a pulling away from the exterior world, making space for contemplating the gift God is about to give humanity, for reflecting on what’s surface and what’s substance. True Advent music is about anticipation and clearing the way.

Gaudete Sunday is meant to be a little opportunity to bust loose and express anticipatory joy, so you can make it all the way to the Nativity. That's why we light the rose-colored candle.

Hanukkah celebrates the retaking of Jerusalem and the reconsecration of the Second Temple during the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid empire in the Second Century BCE. The holiday lasts eight nights—commemorating how long the oil for the sacred light lasted when the temple was rededicated—and it’s a celebration that takes place in the home, not in the synagogue. But there is singing, as well as food, candles and gifts.

Here's a song from the Sephardic Jewish tradition—Mediterranean Jews, as opposed to Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe. Their language is Ladino, which has echoes of Latinate origins.

The narrative of the folksong “Kuando el rey Nimrod” contains some elements familiar to the birth of Christ—King Nimrod interprets a star shining directly over the Jewish quarter of the city; fearful of being supplanted, he orders that all male newborns be put to death. Abraham’s mother slopes off to a cave to give birth; the infant Abraham tells her to leave him, as he’ll be taken care of. When she returns 20 days later, he’s a grown man, leaping in joy. Nimrod finds out about Abraham, calls him to appear before him and then throws him in a furnace. But in a sign confirming that he is the Real One, Abraham survives, and he is known ever after as the first Jew.

(Okay—small discrepancy about how he comes from the Jewish quarter, but is the first Jew. Work with me here.)

Here’s Apollo’s Fire singing it. You might want to turn up the volume.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu