On this Christmas morning—one of the Big Days
for gratitude—my wish is that you have all you need, as well as all of what you
truly wish for.
The world is not equitable, a fact down wholly
to the thoughts and actions of mankind. And I am frankly not sanguine about the
prospects for improving this condition, especially given events of the past
year. The pre-ghost Scrooges of the planet appear to be in charge, and they’re
bent on giving themselves a raise at the expense of everyone else. Moreover, I see no indication that they are capable of redemption, even by getting the tour by the Ghost of Christmas Future. This frankly frightens me; I cannot tell you
how much.
I’ve spent the past few weeks trying to
reassure myself with Christmas music. Some days it worked better than others. So
today I’m doubling down on gratitude, on counting my manifold blessings, and on
building hopes.
We’ve had music about
the visitors to the stable, but it’s getting close to the birth, so I think it’s
time to bring it back to the person critical to such events.
The mother.
Yes, Mary has been a
real trouper throughout the months that led up to the Nativity—fielding visits
from archangels, enduring all the village gossip about her pregnancy, morning
sickness, retaining water, having to pee all the time… (Look—do you think the
presumptively male celestial beings considered maybe cutting her a little slack
in this regard, tossing her a prophylaxis against the water retention or the
nausea? No, I thought not.) Then, in her final month of pregnancy, here she is,
riding an ass all the way to Bethlehem—can you imagine her misery?
Yeah, yeah—carrying the
godhead, blah, blah, blah. That don’t feed the bulldog when it comes to the discomfort
of being in your 39th week and having to make a long journey. On a
donkey. In winter.
Our Medieval and
Renaissance brothers and sisters often referred to Mary as a rose, as in today’s
pick, “There Is No Rose”, which dates from around the 15th Century.
It’s interesting to note that the “virtue” in the opening line isn’t just
purity or chastity, but strength and even power. The Latin root of “virtue” is “vir”:
man, virility. Those Romans might have thought strength and power exclusively
male characteristics, but we needn’t be bound by those limitations.
The opening line
encompasses this:
There is no rose of such
virtue
As is the rose that bore
Jesu.
Yeah—the teen-aged rose
who made the conscious choice to take on this mission, from the git-go knowing
that there was a shedload of pain involved in it for her. Who endured the
village gossip, had to explain to her fiancé that she was pregnant by the Holy
Ghost, who got on that ass and went to Bethlehem to have her baby in a stable,
graciously receive all those gawkers—both high-born and low—and then packed up
to flee to Egypt to avoid Herod’s soldiers. And who, in the end, followed him
to Calvary to witness his particularly ghastly death.
So let’s hear Benjamin
Britten’s arrangement of “There Is No Rose”, sung by the Elektra Women’s Choir,
from Vancouver, B.C. Consider the power in these voices as you listen.
Yesterday and the day before we had the
lowly visitors to Christ’s nativity, so today why don’t we go to the other end of the class system.
You know: the kings.
(I don’t want to hear
from purists sniffing that the kings didn’t arrive until twelve days after the
birth. Not my fault that they couldn’t ask for directions. Besides—if you’re going
to go full-metal realism, there are enough natural elements to make the case
for the big day not being in December, but in the Spring. The early Christians
just moved it to mid-winter to co-opt a lot of pagan holidays. So just back
off, have a glass of something and breathe deeply.)
“We Three Kings” is of
American origin. It was written by a Pennsylvania Episcopalian rector in 1857
for a Christmas pageant. And it’s been sung by kids at every Christmas pageant
in the country ever since.
When I went hunting for
an interesting rendition of “We Three Kings Are”, I came across this one, which
I believe fits the bill. Not being a fan of the X-Men franchise, I didn’t know
a lot about Hugh Jackman, and I knew nothing at all about Peter Cousens and David
Hobson. But it turns out that the latter is an operatic tenor, and the other
two have well-respected musical theatre chops. They’re all Australian, and I’m
guessing that this was for some Aussie TV Christmas special.
Warning: this is not your ordinary Christmas pageant. They're all having a bang-up time singing this; this level of fun is illegal in many states south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
But the rest of us can’t help but wonder at these stars.
So, we’ve seen the farm
girls hurrying to the stable; let’s have some of the other observers of the
Nativity. Namely: we need sheep. And shepherds.
First the sheep. Which
we’ll round up from Messiah. Yes,
they’re not real baa-baas. It’s a simile for sinners who have strayed from
righteousness. “We have turned every one to his own way.” See a lot of that
these days, don’t we? So, let’s listen to the Bratislava City Choir knock it
out.
(Fun fact: I've listened to "All We Like Sheep" for...decades. It wasn't until I started singing it, from an actual score, that I realized it wasn't "Oh, We Like Sheep". Which is a whole other thing.) But the shepherds were
out watching over their flocks, probably huddling close to the fire and taking
a well-deserved snooze. The dogs are out making sure the sheep don’t get into
trouble—why not drop off for the night?
So, picture this: they’re
drifting off (possibly after a few slurps of wine), and all of a sudden, boom!
Some angel appears and yells at them,
telling them to hot-foot it to…a stable!
In Bethlehem! How will they ever explain this one to the guys?
Well, this carol, from
Besançon, in eastern France, is all about the angel-shepherd experience. The
melody is probably from the 17th Century; the carol was first
published in 1842.
Here’s the choir of New
College, Oxford, singing “Shepherds, Shake Off Your Drowsy Sleep”:
Let’s hop over to
France, and specifically to Provence, for today’s piece. Because “Un flambeau,
Jeannette, Isabelle” originated there some time in the 17th Century.
It’s all about two farm girls who have found mother and child in the stable,
and rush to tell the villagers of their discovery.
I learned this in a
French class, and in fact I don’t know the English words. But here’s one
translation of the first verse:
Bring a torch, Jeannette,
Isabelle,
Bring a torch to the
cradle, run!
It is Jesus, good folk
of the village,
Christ is born and Mary’s
calling,
Ah! Ah! Beautiful is the
mother!
Ah! Ah! Beautiful is the
son!
It goes on to describe a
celebratory feast, and to admonish the villagers to hush because the baby’s
sleeping.
Since we’re less than a week from Christmas,
you’ve no doubt heard “Deck the Halls” about 42,736 times since Thanksgiving. If
you for some unaccountable reason do not actually know the words to the first verse,
you at least can join in on the chorus, which consists of “fa”, followed by
about 42,736 “las”.
Easy-peasy, although it helps if you've been nipping at the nog.
The song comes to us from Wales, dating back to
the 16th Century, and the English lyrics were added (by a Scotsman)
in 1862.
Here’s the original Welsh “Nos Galan”, sung—appropriately—by
a Welsh men’s chorus, Barbers and Bishops:
But I don’t think I can hear “Deck the Halls”
without having this classic Christmas dinner scene flash into my mind:
I got some not very heartening news last week,
which I’m still processing. But instead of doing something like opening a bottle
of single malt and sticking a straw in it, I decided to get a Christmas tree. I
haven’t had one of those since 2008—for a number of reasons, including travel
at the holidays and living for five years in a third-floor walk-up.
I got a small tree—maybe 5.5 feet—at Home
Depot. (Note to self: don’t go there again. The woman at the garden center cash
register could not bear to tear herself away from her mobile phone to do more
than take money; God forbid she should have to do something like help a
customer.)
Then I realized that in my last major move, I
got rid of most of my fairy lights, so I had to run out to Target to get a
string. Evidently everything is cold-looking LED, and twinkling is so last
century. But I got the lights sorted, and pulled out my carton of ornaments
that have survived. Some of them go back to the 70s—maybe a little worn, but
still meaningful—every one of them represents either a gift or a trip. With a
tree this small, I can only put on about half of them, but it gave me pleasure
to do that.
I have to say that the final product is not up
to my usual standard of just so-ness, but I am out of practice, so I’m cutting
myself some slack. In the evenings, with just the lights on the tree and
candles about the room, I’m grateful to be able bask in the glow of the season,
and shut out everything else.
Martin Luther is generally acknowledged to be a
badass hymnist—he made congregational singing a key fixture in the Lutheran
worship service, so it makes sense that some extra primo good Christmas music
should come out of that tradition.
What you may not know is that one of the 19th
Century’s great translators of German Lutheran hymns was an Englishwoman named
Catherine Winkworth. Daughter of a silk merchant, Winkworth was influenced by a
couple of Unitarian ministers and brought a lot of power to expanding hymnody. Not
even in her 20s, after spending a year in Dresden, she published a book called Lyra Germanica, which was a collection
of German hymns she liked and had translated. Winkworth essentially opened up
the world of Lutheran music to Anglophones, which enriched Advent for us all.
In addition to her interests in German and
sacred music, Winkworth actively promoted women’s rights, particularly to
education. But my first introduction to her intelligence was a delicious pun
that was published in Punch when she was
16 years old. In 1844, Britain was expanding and solidifying its hold on India,
and one of its imperial coups occurred when General Charles James Napier’s
ruthless campaign to conquer the province of Sindh. In a droll play on two
languages, Winkworth remarked to her teacher that Napier could have announced
his victory with a single word, “peccavi”—Latin for “I have sinned.”
The pun has been credited to Napier himself, perhaps
by persons who could not believe a female—much less a teenaged one—capable of
such dexterity. But records back her as the author.
Today, we’ll have an Advent hymn translated by
Winkworth. The text of “Comfort, Comfort Ye My People” is based on Isaiah 40: 1-5.
The German was published in 1671, set to a tune called “Freu Dich Sehr”, a
setting for Psalm 42 that dated about 100 years earlier. You can hear the
Renaissance in this music—almost see glittering court dancers moving in and out
in an intricate pattern, possibly alternating with wassail. And at the same time, it feels so contemporary, as though you could see speakers-in-tongues dancing in the church aisles. Yeah, a lot of dancing in this one.
So, it’s joyous and energetic—absolutely perfect
for the third week in Advent, when we’re rounding the final turn to Christmas.
I love this one so much, Imma give you a couple of tries at it.
First off, the Cantorei from Saint Olaf College,
Northfield, Minn. Seems only appropriate, as Saint Olaf is a Lutheran liberal
arts college, and every year they put on the blow-out of a Christmas Eve concert
with about the entire student body in a lot of choirs.
And here’s the First Plymouth Church of Lincoln, Nebraska, letting
loose on it at an Advent ceremony of lessons and carols. They got chops, too.
Today is Gaudete Sunday, the day when we take a
step away from the spiritual preparation for Christmas and invite joy into our
lives. It’s a precursor to the joy we’re meant to take of the Messiah’s birth.
The “Gaudete” comes from today’s introit, “Gaudete
in Domino semper; iterum dico, Gaudete.” Which is to say, “Rejoice in the Lord
always; again I say, rejoice”. Today we add the rose candle to the purple ones
on the Advent wreath to emphasize this shift.
Let's hear “O thou that tellest good tidings to
Zion”, also from Messiah. Because,
after all, it’s those good tidings that we’re meant to rejoice over.” Here’s
the Swedish mezzo Anne-Sofie von Otter singing it:
