It’s St. Stephen’s Day, or Boxing Day, or the 26th
of December, so let’s have Eva Cassidy; I’ve chosen her acoustic take on “Wade
in the Water”.
“Wade in the Water” is a jubilee song, an African American
spiritual originating in slavery and collected and sung by the Fisk University
Jubilee Singers in the early years of the 20th Century. A lot
of those songs were about getting through terrible times by holding out hope
for deliverance and salvation.
Not sure, but the first time I heard it might have been
Bernice Johnson Reagon, founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, singing it in a
class she taught at American University. And here’s that amazing
group singing it, if you’re interested.
Cassidy’s warm, powerful and steady voice is what I need
today, reminding me that—even when the waters are choppy—we need to wade in. Maybe because they're choppy we need to do that.
For the culmination of Advent, I’m going back to the
beginning. To Isaiah, which to my mind has some of the most beautiful language
in the entire Bible. People like their Psalms, but give me that old prophet any
time.
Isaiah contributed 20 verses to Georg Friedrich Handel’s Messiah,
and I have to tell you that singing those words to that music is a
transformative experience.
I’m not giving you any of the blockbusters for today,
though. I’ve been thinking a lot about the prophesy that the coming of Christ
would bring about huge changes in the world we know—a leveling and a smoothing
as we are all equal under the Lord.
Sounds bizarre, I know, what with our government currently
going to great lengths to show us that we are a Christian nation, which
exercises supreme power by doing the exact opposite of what Jesus of Nazareth
preached, taught and lived.
But that’s what Isaiah 40:4-5 tells us. And that verse is
the entirety of today’s entry, “Ev’ry Valley”.
Here's the Cambridge Choir with tenor Allan Clayton performing it.
I confess I have a love-meh relationship with “Silent Night”.
In the US, it’s the über Christmas carol, closing out just about every holiday
concert from grade school to master chorales. I feel oversaturated with it.
But it’s ubiquitous for a reason: its simplicity gets to
the heart of the Nativity—an ordinary, quiet night, a new couple make do for
accommodation with stable animals, but the birth of the Messiah. A few
straightforward verses, three-quarter time, you can play it on any instrument
around and even little children can master it. (-Ish.) It’s been translated
into probably every language on the planet as a gateway to the whole story; I’ve
certainly learned it in every language I’ve studied.
I’m giving you the Spanish version, sung by Andrea Bocelli,
because it does feel appropriate for this particular Christmas Eve, when people
all over the US are being rounded up and tossed in prison (citizen or not) for
the crime of speaking Spanish. Reenacting the persecutions of Herod—so on-brand.
Today’s Advent piece originated with plainsong back in the
mists of Christianity, so: Latin. The opening lines of “Rorate Caeli” translate
to “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just.
Let the earth be opened and send forth a Saviour.”
The chant featured in regular Advent services devoted to
Mary, known as the Rorate Mass. I don’t recall ever having attended one (they
were weekday/Saturday masses, and kinda got sidelined during the Second Vatican
Council), but I would like to. They used to be held in the early morning, which
seems to me to be a good way to start out a workday during Advent.
In the Anglican tradition, the opening lines translate to
“Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.”
I believe we could use some of that these days.
This version is by Maîtrise Notre Dame de Paris, which is a
music school in Paris.
Unlike the fir, the holly and the ivy, the citrus is
decidedly not evergreen. (TBH, ivy is actually bloody near indestructible. Come
Armageddon, it will indubitably rule with cockroaches over the blasted
hellscape that planet Earth becomes.) As I discovered earlier this year when
the February freezes torched
my three potted citrus trees, despite me wrapping the bases in bubble wrap.
When my neighbors moved to Seattle, I liberated their
three very large pots (no pix, sorry) and repotted two of the trees; my
gardenia in a larger container than the trees has weathered about seven
winters, so… But around the end of October, I began looking for reinforcement
solutions. I could move the smaller pot indoors, but not the larger two.
I mentioned this to a friend in the UK, and she had a
suggestion:
Friend: What about garden fleece—would that work?
Me: Garden fl—wut?
But, dear reader—garden fleece is indeed a thing; I
ordered some online and then draped it double-strength around both, using clothespins
to secure it. I also brought back the chicken wire enclosure for one of them,
because I saw Scooter
the chipmunk sizing it up.
We’ve had quite the range of temperatures in the past
couple of weeks—from high 50s to the teens—but so far, it looks like my little
trees are surviving. One has some frostburned leaves, but most of it seems healthy.
(The indoor one started flowering after I brought it
inside. I mentioned that to my English friend, all happy about getting lemons,
and she asked, “How about pollination?” Me: “Pollin—wut?” So, as per online
wisdom, I hand-pollinated, and I may get a few lemons.)
This is my gratitude for today. It’s so hard to grow
anything in my backyard, because the only time it gets any sun is after all the
deciduous trees have lost their leaves. I’m filled with joy by these three
potted pals, and by the reminder that we can withstand some big things, when we
have help.
I can find no Christmas songs about citrus, but here’s one about
the apple tree. The text for “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree” dates from the 18th Century,
a poem probably written by a “Calvinist Baptist” (later known as “Methodist”)
preacher, Richard Hutchins. It’s been set to music by several composers,
including the ubiquitous John Rutter.
Using the metaphor of the apple tree for Christ may
reference the creation story in Genesis, or it could reflect New Testament
depictions of Jesus as the Tree of Life. Then there’s the pre-Christian British
custom of going out among fruit orchards around the Winter Solstice to offer
(and drink) libations to awaken the trees for their Spring duties.
(I wrote before about this custom in a post
about wassail, which got merged into Christmas, as things often do.)
I personally love the image, especially in the dead of
Winter, and doubly-especially in this ghastly year. We need to remember
that—despite our best human efforts to the contrary—nature will do her best to
bounce back, and life will triumph over death.
Besides, apples make great pies.
The lyrics are so powerful that I think it worthwhile to
set them out for you:
The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green;
The trees of nature fruitless be,
Compared with Christ the Apple Tree.
His beauty doth all things excel,
By faith I know but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see,
In Jesus Christ the Appletree.
For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought;
I missed of all but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the Appletree.
I'm weary with my former toil -
Here I will sit and rest awhile,
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the Appletree.
With great delight I’ll make my stay,
There’s none shall fright my soul away;
Among the sons of men I see
There’s none like Christ the Appletree.
I’ll sit and eat this fruit divine,
It cheers my heart like spirit’al wine;
And now this fruit is sweet to me,
That grows on Christ the Appletree.
This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the Appletree.
I am eschewing Rutter and giving you a version set to music
by Elizabeth Poston, a 20th-Century English composer. Here it’s
performed by a group called Seraphic Fire.
Today is Annunciation Sunday, the last before Christmas. It
focuses on the visit by the archangel Gabriel to Mary, to tell her God had
chosen her to give birth to his son, the long-awaited Messiah.
I mean—it’s obviously not the anniversary of the
Annunciation; if Jesus had been born in December, Gabriel would have visited
Mary in March. If the Nativity was in the Spring—as most historians support,
because shepherds and sheep were out in the fields, which they wouldn’t have
been in December—then the angel-woman confab would have been around August.
This is a covering-all-the-bases commemoration, really—using the final Sunday
in Advent to remind ourselves of the Whole Story.
But today is also Winter Solstice—the longest night and shortest day of
the year in the Northern Hemisphere. After tonight, night retreats day by day
until balance is achieved at the equinox, and then the tide turns again at the
Summer Solstice.
Probably since the origins of humanity, people have
celebrated this annual event, giving thanks for the return of the sun,
gathering around bonfires, singing, banging on things, eating and drinking.
Before the domestication of fire to candles, followed by gas lights and then by
electricity, knowing that the hours of darkness would not in fact continue to
grow was comforting in a world full of perils.
The festival we know as Christmas was overlaid on older
traditions; the birth of the Son of God has perhaps more dramatic impact if
it’s celebrated around the Solstice rather than sometime in Spring, which makes
more meteorological and astronomical sense. The early Church accomplished two
goals with the coopting: subsumed pagan sun worship into Christian rites and
gave themselves license to feast away the longest nights of the year. It’s not
a bad deal, really.
And as Christianity co-opted the pagan celebrations of the
Solstice of providing artificial light against the very real darkness, they also
incorporated evergreen vines and branches into their traditions: plants that
hold their verdant color even through the worst of freezing weather.
Evergreens—firs, pines and the like—are of course symbols
of eternal life. Pre-Christian Europeans decorated their houses with evergreen
branches to celebrate the winter solstice. Christians go one step further with
adding lights—candles and then electric—to beat back the darkness. The
ornaments help refract the light into the room. We hang wreaths on doors and
windows; often on the grilles of our cars. (And, in the past few years, some of
those have lights on them, too.)
Along with the color, evergreens bring their scent into our
homes, reminding us that life may appear dormant, but it usually comes back.
(Yes—it always has in the past, but I’m getting a little uneasy about the
future. Still, for now…)
In honor of the Solstice, Mary and evergreens, let’s have “The
Sans Day Carol”, which originated in Cornwall. It’s a variant on “The Holly and
the Ivy”, but since ivy is an invasive species here in the Old Dominion, I’m
not giving it electron space. I’m all holly, all the way.
(You have to cut this one some slack—obvs the holly doesn't bear a white berry, or a black one. They're greenish and then they're red, before flocks of robins swoop down and ravage them. Also, there's no way Jesus was ever wrapped in silk, his entire life. It's poetic and metaphoric license.)
Here’s the English early music group Carnival Band
performing it. I like this version because it hasn’t been whizzed on by John
Rutter, and that’s hard to find these days.
We’re going from mid-century modern to probably late Medieval
England for today’s Advent piece. It brings up the dark side of the Nativity
story—the part that’s usually left out of the festivities, but which the
current administration is re-enacting every day in and out of season.
On their journey following the star, the three Wise Men
stopped for a spell in Jerusalem and asked King Herod for directions to where
they might find the child about to be born who would rule the world. This
turned out to be a costly mistake, because Herod—so the Gospels tell
us—followed the time-honored Middle Eastern custom of ensuring security of his
administration by ordering the slaughter of all male children up to two years
of age in the vicinity of Bethlehem. (Joseph was warned by an angel, and he, Mary
and Jesus fled to Egypt, where the government did not separate them or put them
in cages or deport them back to Palestine.)
(On a side note, imagine how Mary, having just endured an
uncomfortable journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem and given birth to her first
child, must have felt having to pick up and run all the way to Egypt. No
returning to the comfort of her home and the support of friends. She's got to
manage with a newborn, on that dag-blamed donkey for hundreds of miles, to a
strange country where she doesn't speak the language, and where the hell is she
going to get diapers? We should really hear more about this.)
“Coventry Carol” is from a mystery play put on annually in
the city of Coventry. Not sure about the precise date, but it was documented in
the 16th Century. It’s the only song to survive from that
particular play, and it was sung by three women, representing all the mothers
trying to reassure the children they knew were doomed.
It therefore seems appropriate to have a women’s choral
group singing it, so I’m giving you Anúna.
We’re going mid-century for today’s Advent piece. “Rockin’
Around the Christmas Tree” was written by Johnny Marks (who gave us “Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “A Holly Jolly Christmas”) and recorded by Brenda
Lee in 1958—when she was 13 years old. That chick had one hell of a voice.
To be honest, there’s not a whole lot to this song, and I’m
not a huge fan of rockabilly in general, but it’s energetic and inoffensive.
Why I’m here with it today is because I stumbled across the
Korean acapella group Maytree giving this performance, and I was frankly mesmerized.
So here it is.
Today’s Advent offering should probably come closer to
Christmas, because it’s about the shepherds. But I’m thinking a lot lately
about the people who work in the fields, on ranches and in the slaughterhouses
and meatpacking plants that keep us fed, so…
“Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow” was sung by
African-American slaves in the ante-bellum South. It was first published as “A
Christmas Plantation Song” in Slave Songs of the United States, in
1867. The songs in this collection were gathered during the War Between the
States, and the melody is probably from the coastal islands off South Carolina
and Georgia. A lot of those songs would have been call and response, which is
how “Rise Up, Shepherd” is framed.
Back in those days so glorified now by Republicans, slaves
were property, to be used and disposed of at their master’s pleasure, like
cattle and sheep. White owners, almost always professing Christians, were
conflicted about converting their slaves. In one respect, it made no more sense
than spreading the gospel to their cattle or sheep; property’s property, duh.
But in another, preaching Christ’s teachings was downright radical—all that
talk about all of us one under the Lord kinda runs contrary to the whole
master-slave thing. What if—and bear with me on this for a minute—what if all
those black people got the notion that spiritual liberation should be followed
by, you know, actual physical liberation? Scary stuff, right?
So it was not at all uncommon for colonial legislatures to
enact laws to ensure clarity on this issue: white guys = free; black guys = not
free. Ordained by both God and man; end of. Maryland was the first colony, in
1664, to legislate that baptism had no effect on the social status of slaves.
Southern theologians intoned that slaves had no soul; ergo treating them as
property was copacetic, whether baptized or not.
Just like cattle and sheep.
(For the record, there are no reports to my knowledge of
plantation owners baptizing their cattle or sheep. It could have happened, I
suppose, but they didn’t document it in the parish ledger.)
Generally speaking, slaves were also kept illiterate; no
need to read to pick cotton, tend babies or shoe horses. Also—man, that Gospel;
you do not want anyone in captivity to have free access to
that sucker, to parse and to ponder and to come up with weird-ass conclusions
like Jesus preached to the poor and had no particular love for the rich, and
what do we make of that? No, no—none of that Protestant notion of putting the
Bible into everyone’s hands so s/he can build an individual relationship with
God. You might as well give the field hands guns.
Also, slaves were forbidden to gather in large numbers,
where they might talk with one another, share information about their
conditions and maybe discuss things that property owners would prefer that
their chattel goods didn’t discuss.
So being unable to write or congregate, generations of men,
women and children developed a musical code for communication with one another,
across geographical and chronological boundaries. This code would be spirituals
and gospel music. When you dig into some of these songs, they’re about as
incendiary as it gets; they’re just cloaked in metaphor. “Follow the Drinking
Gourd”, “Jacob’s Ladder”, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”—they all sound kind of
meek and pious, but they’re built on pain and anger and aspirations.
And so is “Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow”. I mean, how on
earth did slaveholders even hear those first two words without the hair on the
backs of their necks standing on end? The response to the call—twice in the
verses and twice again in the chorus—is literally telling the listeners to rise
up. And follow that star to freedom.
This is really clever—the star followers in the Nativity
story were the wise men, the three kings, the guys who’d have been identified
with the slave owning class; not shepherds, who clearly align more with the
slaves. Also, the star in the song is in the East, and the one slaves followed
was in the North, so a bit more subterfuge. No, no, massa—don’t worry your
white head; this song isn’t about slaves escaping or rebelling or anything like
that. It’s all about your blue-eyed Jesus.
The song urges the shepherds/slaves to ditch their
responsibilities to follow that star. I have to admit that it seems
irresponsible and unshepherdly to abandon their sheep; I feel bad for the
animals. But if we’re talking tobacco and cotton fields, I can totally see
slipping away and hoofing it north of the Mason-Dixon line. Massa can bloody
well get up and milk the cows himself. Or pay someone to do it.
In addition to the call/response framework, I also notice
that “Rise Up, Shepherd” has what I call a work rhythm to it. Like sea
shanties—it’s steady with a strong beat, which you could use to coordinate
repetitive labor, like swinging a scythe or pulling ropes. Or packing chicken
parts onto Styrofoam trays on an assembly line.
I do not know why I can’t find a really good recording of
this for you; all the versions out there are way too far removed from the slave
quarters—all laundered and pressed, with no dirt or sweat in sight. Here’s the
best I could manage, from the Christ Church Cathedral choir in Victoria,
British Columbia.
One of my favorite sources for Advent and Christmas hymns
is the Victorian polymath Catherine
Winkworth. She translated scores of German religious works into English,
and boy, did she have a way with words.
Our Advent piece for today is her “Wake, Awake, for Night
Is Flying”. The original was published by Philipp Nicolai in 1598; musical
setting by J.S. Bach. The chorale as he wrote it is fabulously intricate; it’s
all moving parts. And when you sing it in a congregation it is glorious. But
the Dominican Sisters of Mary here take it back to the bare bones and let you
concentrate on the message: be alert, the Messiah is coming, you do not want to
miss this.
