Tag Archives: advent

Hopes – a meditation for Advent

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The Christmas story has a lot in common with the Easter story in that it’s about the end of an old way of living, and the beginning of a new one.

It is a traditional mark that we can sink our claws in and say “this is the place where we will begin.” It’s a bit like the musical version of Dickens’ Christmas Carol when the Scrooge character wakes up on Christmas morning and sings, “I will begin again.“

If you have to, look beyond all the Jesus stuff in the story and see this: renewal of a tired old land. We have slogged along so long and we think to ourselves: things cannot possibly get any worse. People cannot possibly become more poor. Tyrants cannot possibly become more iron fisted.

Somehow, they do.

Advent  is the time of year when we can look to the future and stop running in fear from the past. Everything we have seen, done, read, and experienced from the past has led us here, to this day. We look at Advent with sleepy eyes and tired limbs because we have scratched and clawed to get here. People have died along the way. Children have starved. Evil words have flown out and cut us the same as if knives were flung through the air. We stagger into Advent ragged, sweaty, torn. And we are slowed so much by all the baggage we have picked up this year: worries, anger, fears.

We approach the scene more tired that we have ever been.

Why do we do it? What keeps us going on when things seem their worse? The clue is in one of those little Christmas songs that you probably learned somewhere in elementary school. It’s that one line that we sing each year, almost by rote, and the great impact upon us might fly by as we sing and look for some great thing that will save us. What do we wait for more than anything else for these anxious days of Advent?

We search for the answer.

Fill in your own question here. There are too many to write down. Most questions begin with Why…? and some with How can I… ? and even a few with What if….?

We rely on a season of new beginnings and what comes from that to help us answer that great question. We don’t even have to speak it because we know it and surely our  Maker does too. This year we walk forward, as raggedy as we are, as tired, as bloody, because ahead of us is what is better than where we are now.

That is the story of Advent.

Looking beyond the Jesus story, we have this time that we move toward this morning of our next do-over. We – like Scrooge – get to start again. Maybe this year (we hope) we will find the answer we seek now through our great exhaustion. Maybe now we can catch a break. That is the story of Advent.

The song? You remember:

Oh little town of Bethlehem
how still we see thee lie.

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
the silent stars go by.

Yet in the dark streets shineth
the Everlasting Light:

The hopes and fears
of all the years

Are met in thee tonight.

If we do not have hope that we can start new with a fresh set of clothes and a sip of water, we cannot move on. Everything around us – everything we know – we have bet on this time of great change. All the world waits in dreamless silence and hopes above all hopes that after this day, it all gets better.

May the benediction of the Everlasting Light be with us all. May we always hope that as the Advent nears, everything around us will reflect that light, and the Kingdom of Heaven will be reflected in us all.

Keep the faith!
 - Amen

 

 

Here we sing Christmas – an Advent meditation

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 My public speaking professor said that in order to be a good public enunciator (and as I see now, either a Preacher or a Politician… ahem…,) we should learn French phonetics because it teaches you to “control your tongue.” I must have learned things in the wrong order because I have decent command of speaking in public and of spoken French.

That “controlling my tongue” thing gets me trouble every time.

There are two words I love to say in French: the first is the car name “Citroën” because it’s a beautifully southern-like word with an extra syllable in there where one shouldn’t exist (this concept came native to me because “no” is a three-syllable word when my mother says it. She’s Southern.) Citroën is fun to say because it sounds like you’re getting ready to hock a loogie from the middle of your mouth. This is a foreign concept (the pronunciation – not the loogie hocking) to Americans. They never quite get the hang of it and instead go for  “Citron.“

Or they spit all over the person they’re speaking to.

The other word is “Noël” because the vowel part comes from way back in the throat about as far as you can get and not swallow it. There’s a cadence and lifting of the tone of your voice as you say bonjour Noël as if you were greeting Christmas the same as you would greet a friend you just ran into on the street: Bonjour Joe! Bonjour Marie!

Christmas should be like that.

Not up in the very front of our “OMG! What are we going to do about … X … !?” brain, but way back (“back yonder“) in the farthest “back yonder” beyond memorization, or thinking about it. Noël just like life should just… be.

This isn’t a story about what you believe when you say a phrase or sing a song. This is about where the phrases and songs come from. At first you act from memory. These are the things we do every year at this time and we do them because, well, because we’ve always done them this time of year.

Perhaps there’s more.

Maybe it’s all a language that our body and soul takes on over the years. In theory, the longer we speak a language the better we get at it. And with this time of the year as we get older we become more rehearsed at what we are supposed to be doing, or we build a sort-of ritual of shared and common memories that comes from way back there in that farthest back back yonder of our lives.

In one of the Americanized translations of the French carol Noël Nouvelet, the first phrase is:

Christmas come anew…

I like that image. Christians have the Nativity of Christ as an ongoing sacramental holiday. It has been the same for all these years and it will be pretty much the same pushing onward into our civilization’s infinity (and beyond.) It is a tradition based on as many social and family rubrics (“Oh dear. What are we going to get for Uncle Bob this year?”) as there are standardized forms of celebration.

If the idea of all that tradition tries your patience (especially around trying so hard to get it right every year), think of the other phrase that is linguistically more familiar, but to put into practice requires a little thought, and an entire (spiritual) year of planning. This isn’t a centering concept you can pick up at whatever is the Black Friday of Prayer, and run with until New Year’s Eve, then pack and stow away in the attic until next year about this time.

Christmas comes anew requires both understanding where it came from (good or bad) and as it approaches, is among us, and rolls back out. Seeing it in this anew state helps us imagine where this year’s Christmas is going to take us into the brave new world of an unknown  new year.

Noël Nouvelet is quite a brave little song. Besides having a nice little danceable tune, it makes a stand: Here – in this spot – we are going to stand and sing… and what follows is the Christmas story, but it’s girded with this exclamation first that Christmas is very much among us in present-tense, and not in some concept, or some poem or some letter to the editor from a young girl named Virginia.

Maybe Christmas is not a defensible position in your life because everybody around you does it (liking it or not) and we simply do not change, or even vary the tune.

Tradition is strong.

Maybe you don’t do it at all and really want to be left alone from all this fake joviality and forced consumerism.

Independence is always a little hard-of-hearing.

Maybe you do some other thing over here on the side, and Christmas is not familiar, not warm and cuddly, and not noticed because you are busy with the other thing you do.

Good choices makes for a good pot of stew.

The what-if question in this story is: what if you then take this Christmas concept with whatever definition it has in your life (if any) and you skip what has always been, and what likely will be done again, and you think about that phrase: Christmas comes anew. Greet it like that friend you meet on the sidewalk: bonjour Noël! and go about your business of greeting and standing and singing. Because you have spent the whole previous year in anticipation of this time when you get to spend your days reveling in it, and then spend another great year in anticipation (and preparation) of it’s coming again.

Let today become that Black Friday of Prayer.

Each year it comes fresh to us in whatever swaddling we have wrapped around it. Each year we take our stand and say here… now…  we sing.

Can you think of a better way to spend your year?

Keep the faith!
- Amen

Noël nouvelet

traditional French carol
performed by The King’s Singers

 

Noel nouvelet, Noel chantons ici,
Devotes gens, crions a Dieu merci!
Chantons Noel pour le Roi nouvelet, Noel!
Chantons Noel pour le Roi nouvelet,
Noel nouvelet, Noel chantons ici!

L’ange disait! pasteurs partez d’ici!
En Bethleem trouverez l’angelet. Refrain

En Bethleem, etant tous reunis,
Trouverent l’enfant, Joseph, Marie aussi. Refrain

Bientot, les Rois, par l’etoile eclaircis,
A Bethleem vinrent un matinee. Refrain

L’un partait l’or; l’autre l’encens bem;
L’etable alors au Paradis semblait. Refrain

Translated Version:

Christmas comes anew, O let us sing Noel!
Glory to God! Now let your praises swell!
Sing we Noel for Christ, the newborn King, Noel!
Sing we Noel for Christ, the newborn King.
Christmas comes anew, O let us sing Noel!

Angels did say, “O shepherds come and see,
Born in Bethlehem, a blessed Lamb for thee.” Refrain

In the manger bed, the shepherds found the Child;
Joseph was there, and Mother Mary mild. Refrain

Soon came the kings from following the star,
Bearing costly gifts from Eastern lands afar. Refrain

Brought to Him gold and incense of great price,
Then the stable bare resembled Paradise. Refrain

 

The New Day

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One of the greatest inspirational songs I’ve ever heard was one that WETA-FM in Washington, DC played every morning at 6:00 am for many years. I’m not sure if they still do, but in those early training school days of my retail career, I was up in suit-and-tie and on my way to class with the other trainees at 8am, then meetings at 9, and having my little section of the giant store open at 10. When I found the song playing each day at that time, I set my radio alarm so it was the first thing I heard every day. Not realizing it at the time, it was like a morning prayer, or reading the daily office before starting the day. All done in less than four minutes.

No loud alarms, no jumping out of bed, no choking down scalding coffee as I ran out the door. I just got up and started my new day.

It followed me from training days, to crawling up through drudge (and some grudge) positions. It followed me to the greatest day job I ever had involving an entire store, in which I had to make large-stroke decisions on the merchandising direction and look of the entire store, not just departments. Then it grew on to doing the same with multiple stores all across the country.  Every step along the way – the usual expected office stress aside – it all begin simply with my beginning each sunrise as A New Day.

The career continued forward from there, and I stayed with the song for as long as I was able to work that with my early morning schedule. Retail hours get crazy some times and you’re doing double shifts or closing late, and it’s not so easy to get up every day at 6am like FM radio station clockwork.

When we moved to (back to) North Carolina to try my hand at a start-up company, we had left that regularity, and in a few years’ time I’d stumbled upon this contemplative practice that I write about so much here. It became that same continuity of spirit and serenity. I had to get up a lot earlier to get things done: 5 am each day so I could read through the liturgical readings for the day from the Lectionary (that would be Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament, and Gospel readings for the day.) Then 20 minutes for a timed “sit” – a time of silent prayer in the darkness of the early hours, in that quiet still-sleeping house, usually with the greyhound napping at my feet. The perfect prayer partner: he understood that the three chimes leading us into prayer was the beginning of this time of great silence, and the three chimes at the end was when he opened his eyes, looked up at me, and knew that the day was afoot, tail gently thumping the carpet!

After this meditation, for the first 2-3 years I wrote a homily each day: not so much sermonizing, as it was a sort of “note-to-self” back to me on what I had just read, and what(ever) had come out of that time of contemplation.  I still go back and read those manuscripts and wonder at the growth and closeness to my God that I grew into more deeply on the pages.

It all began with a song.

“You Are The New Day” sung by The King’s Singers became an “old chestnut” of the group, and was seen quite often on PBS television stations as their sign-on/sign-off videos back in the days when television stations did not run 24 hours a day, and had to sign off at midnight. Often with some rendition of the National Anthem. Then they signed on again  at some wee hour of the morning, and some used “You Are The New Day” for that.

A few years ago, the group performed a once-off variation in concert with a Christmas theme version of the lyrics, written by group member Philip Lawson.  I first heard it live when they sang it during an interview on one of the Satellite radio stations, speaking with my friend Robert Aubry Davis. Like the audiences who heard it in concert, I fell in love immediately, and was glad to hear that they finally recorded the Christmas version because of the intense international popularity of this simple song.

The performance below is not by the Singers themselves, but done by a larger choral group, The Cambridge Singers, directed by John Rutter. With only the slightest variation to the original text, Lawson’s verses transform this most gentle love song into a Nativity cradle song for the rest of us – for the ones looking on.

Listening to the Christmas version, I’m reminded that – just as with my alarm clock going off to this sweet melody all those years at 6 am – what we are witnessing at the Nativity is indeed a New Day. And just as with the radio-alarm going off each morning – it is up to us to remember what this day represents, and to find our own ways to spread it forward in gentle peace and love.

On this Christmas, may we each find our own New Day.

Keep the faith!
- Amen

 

Born on a New Day

performed by The Cambridge Singers and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
directed by John Rutter

Christmas lyric variation by Philip Lawson

You are the new day.
Meekness, love, humility,
Come down to us this day:
Christ, your birth has proved to me
You are the new day.

Quiet in a stall you lie,
Angels watching in the sky
Whisper to you from on high:
‘You are the new day.’

When our life is darkest night,
Hope has burned away,
Love, your ray of guiding light,
Show us the new day.

Love of all things great and small,
Leaving none, embracing all,
Fold around me where I fall,
Bring in the new day.

This new day will be a turning point For every one,
If we let the Christ-child in, And reach for the new day.

Christ the Way, the Truth, the Life,
Healing sadness, ending strife,
You we welcome, Lord of Life.
Born on a new day,
You are the new day.

 

———————————————–

To see a popular PBS Television spot featuring the original King’s Singers version, please click on this link:  You Are The New Day

 

You Are The New Day

Performed by The Kings’ Singers

Lyrics by John David

You are the new day.
I will love you more than me
and more than yesterday
If you can but prove to me
you are the new day

Send the sun in time for dawn
Let the birds all hail the morning
Love of life will urge me say
you are the new day

When I lay me down at night knowing we must pay
Thoughts occur that this night might stay yesterday

Thoughts that we as humans small
could slow worlds and end it all
lie around me where they fall
before the new day

One more day when time is running out for everyone
Like a breath I knew would come I reach for the new day

Hope is my philosophy
Just needs days in which to be
Love of life means hope for me
borne on a new day

You are the new day

 

 

 

Who’s Your Daddy? – Cherry Trees and Christmas Surprises

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Joseph – The Dad of Jesus. He gets left out of the Christmas story quite a bit as he seems to be there to uproot Mary and get her off to Bethlehem for a tax census and then scoot her out to Egypt, and that’s about it. We know he was an older man with children from a previous marriage (the siblings of Jesus) and that his betrothed was quite a bit younger. We don’t know why the age difference, or how they came together as a couple and then a family, since that is insignificant to the larger Nativity story.

What I like most about Joseph is that he was just a “guy” much like the apostles later on. A carpenter. He worked for a living and was a good Jew. And he ended up in a strange (and dangerous) situation with this single mom, and just her word for it that this was all God’s idea. No angels came and told Joseph what was up until the very eve that his (espoused) wife gave birth!

He adjusted pretty well for an old guy.

The story of Joseph seems more contemporary than the stories around it in the gospels: they lived in a very regimented time with lots of marriage laws and inheritance laws, including the inheritance of one’s bride, in certain situations like the death of a guy’s brother. Yet here, Joseph has choices to make. Marry this young woman (who could well be a harlot, or insane!) and take in this child as his own. Joseph gets to set the example for the rest of us that – even though many laws and regulations might stick us with the people we are kin to, part of our life is also choosing the family around us. Friends, BFFs, Neighbors, FWBs, you name it.

Then it gets more complicated with our Exs, their kids, the kids’-kids, and the kids’ friends we collected along the way as our “mostly-kids.” Old roommates. And about 4 people that you can’t remember exactly how it is you know them, but they’re on the list, anyway.

Our Family.

The Cherry Tree Carol speaks to this guy-ness of Joseph, the Dad of Jesus. I can’t imagine being as patient as he was with the whole situation and I was glad to find this old carol that gives us a glimpse at his human side. The carol goes back probably earlier than 17th Century Europe, and made it over the pond to appear as an Appalachian carol.

In the story, while on their way to Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph pass through an orchard of cherry trees, and Mary says, “Could you reach up and pick me just one cherry from the tree?“

Joseph – with just a little traveling stress going on I’m sure – answers back, “Here’s an idea: why don’t you let the father of that kid in you reach up and pick you a cherry.”

In response, the Child within her calls the tallest tree to bow down, and so she picks her own, saying, “See! I have the power of the trees within me.“

Ouch.

Joseph realizes at once that he was out of line, puts Mary on his knee and says, “What have I done, Lord! Have mercy on me!“

It’s after this point in the story that the angel finally comes to Joseph and tells him that Mary will give birth that very night. The American lyrics also include the date of January 6, which was celebrated as Old Christmas in the mountains, up into the early days of the 20th Century.

In that moment of realization, Joseph goes from being an outsider looking in on the Nativity story, to the real Dad of Christ. He knows the difference between being the boy’s Father, and being his Dad. Joseph is the one who will see him through his early years, hold him proudly during the brit milah, teach him carpentry skills, take him to temple and see that he learns the ways of their people and their beliefs. He will do the things that a Dad does with his boy. No blood-kin necessary.

Joseph the Dad of Jesus taught us that if circumstances arise that we are not surrounded by our related family, we are still embraced and loved by our natural family: the people who are there when we call. The ones who care for and look after us. The ones who need us to care for and look after them. Sometimes it is with God’s guidance that these people fall into our lives, and sometimes it’s happenstance. Whichever the case, they are just as much family to us as cousins and aunts and uncles. And they deserve the same love and reverence as well.

What if your own family has kicked you out?  What if they’ve all died off over the years and it seems that you are the only one left? What if there is an icy cold chasm between you and them and the ice never seems to thaw? Then don’t forget the others around you – the ones who laugh with you and worry with you. The ones who help you in a pinch or understand when you say “I just don’t feel up to it today,” knowing they’ll be back tomorrow or the next.

They’re all “guys” just like you and me. And the more we have in our lives, the more love we get to bounce around.

Keep the faith!

 

The Cherry Tree Carol

sung by Jean Ritchie

 Lyrics (Traditional Mountain Carol)

When Joseph was an old man,
An old man was he,
When he courted Virgin Mary,
The Queen of Galilee,
When he courted Virgin Mary,
The Queen of Galilee,

As Joseph and Mary
Were walking one day,
“Here are apples and cherries,”
O Mary did say….

Then Mary spoke to Joseph,
So meek and so mild,
“Joseph, gather me some cherries
For I am with child….”

Then Joseph flew in anger –
In anger flew he,
“Let the father of the baby
Gather cherries for thee!”

Then Jesus spoke a few words,
A few words spoke he,
“Let my mother have some cherries;
Bow low down, cherry tree!

“Bow down, O cherry tree!
Bow low down to the ground!”
Then Mary gathered cherries
While Joseph stood around….

Then Joseph took Mary
All on his left knee;
Saying: “What have I done? Lord,
Have mercy on me!”

Then Joseph took Mary
All on his right knee,
“Pray tell me, little baby,
When your birthday shall be….

“On the sixth day of January
My birthday shall be,
When the stars and the elements
Shall tremble with glee….

***

As Joseph was a-walking,
He heard an angel sing,
“Tonight shall be the birth-time
Of Christ, our heavenly king….”

“He neither shall be born
In house nor in hall,
Nor in the place of paradise,
But in an ox’s stall….

“He neither shall be clothéd
In purple nor in pall
But in the bare white linen
That useth babies all….

As Joseph was a-walking,
Then did an angel sing,
And Mary’s child at midnight
Was born to be our king….

Even So, Lord – patience in the time of great anticipation

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Maybe it is my own infirmity and my impatience with it – for some reason the daily news causes dis-ease in my soul this quiet Advent season.

Presidential campaigns are  always a stressful time for me, more since our people have once again become the whipping boys of the ones in campaign who strive to win by showing all and sundry who it is that they should be afraid of. By tThose who seek votes in their favor by telling folks who to hate, rather than showing us what measure of leader they are. This year it’s more difficult to speak out in defense against their ignorance and hate. It’s more painful to “open the mouth” as my mother says to remind folks that the great Commission of those on the spiritual path is to show love, acceptance, and radical hospitality:

To seek always to live a life of complete Shalom.

Violence around us is speaking louder to me as I wonder, “is it always so, or is this year worse than usual?” Poverty – as Dickens wrote – is more keenly felt as the good charities come up short on donations to make kids-in-need happier, to protect families cast to the street, and to feed those who do not have enough to eat. In the dark winter days of a dark economy, each of us knows that first priority is to keep our own families warm and fed, and when budgets scrape, the luxuries of giving part of what we have to others may have to take a Rain Check.

And still they are around us – cold… hungry… homeless… unloved.

These feelings bring more uncomfortable silence to my quiet meditations: too much time spent circling in a whirlpool of “OMG What Can I do?” and focusing on what I do not have, rather than what I have plenty of to share and give away. I may slip for a second of relinquishing to the bad things that people say about our people – the things they say for profit rather than to tell the truth.

But just a second or two, knowing that my bowing down to hateful speech means that I have let that chunk of hate live in the air around me, rather than speaking out with words of unending Shalom.

I am impatient that the frailty of my body keeps me down on the days I want to be up and moving. I find my thoughts slipping off-prayer in my meditations to my impatience with the badness of the world around me. Instead of being present and receptive, I catch myself fist-shaking at God and wondering When will this be done? When will these troubles change? When will…???  Then the Maker congratulates me on being so human as the answer comes back:

Shalom.

Solution is simple. Return, ever-so-gently to the reason of our prayers and meditations: to be closer to the Maker, to be in loving communion that allows us to be more loving people. My fears fade, my monkey brain rests. Again, I can sit and be still in the presence of my God.

—

In 1953, American choral composer Paul Manz was in a tough place: his 3-year-old son John was in the hospital, gravely ill with very little hope of survival. During the long vigil his wife Ruth cobbled together words from The Revelation 22, and gave them to Manz for a project, which he published after their son was better  and dedicated it to those who had prayed for John’s recovery.

The work he created has become one of the standards of American choral liturgical music and centers on an Advent theme – the coming birth of Christ and how that will change the world through brightness and love. The melody speaks to my contemplative heart because the tune itself is a winding meditation of prayer. I have heard this work both as instrumental (for both organ and oboe) and choral, and they both work for me! It’s a simple, contemplative piece and if you are not into the Jesus stuff, the lyrics will not get in the way.

I listen to the work and let it flow around me in the air during prayers, My heart moves away from the troubles of the world, and rests in the lullaby of “…and night shall be no more.” In your darker days of the spirit, I hope that this will become part of your arsenal and do the same for you.

Keep the faith!
- Amen

E’en So Lord Jesus Quickly Come

 

 

E’en So Lord Jesus Quickly Come

lyrics and music by Paul Manz (1953)

Peace be to you and grace from Him
Who freed us from our sin Who loved us all, and shed his blood
That we might saved be.
Sing holy, holy to our Lord
The Lord almighty God Who was and is, and is to come
Sing holy, holy Lord.
Rejoice in heaven,
all ye that dwell therein
Rejoice on earth, ye saints below
For Christ is coming,
Is coming soon
For Christ is coming soon.
E’en so Lord Jesus quickly come
And night shall be no more
They need no light, no lamp, nor sun
For Christ will be their All!