This is an amazing little piece.

Written by William Billings, a 17th century composer from Boston, it is musically lush; according to Between the Lines, Billings was known for his ‘fuguing tunes’ as well as writing songs and choral pieces in support of the Revolution (he is considered to be the first American choral composer).

This tune is a pleasure to sing, and even more a pleasure to hear.  And the lyrics are so simple yet so complex:

When Jesus wept, the falling tear
in mercy flowed beyond all bound.
When Jesus groaned, a trembling fear
seized all the guilty world around.

There are about a dozen sermons in those four lines, and I am feeling disinclined to write much of anything about it today (unlike yesterday when I gave you a sermon). Instead, I will leave you with this beautiful rendition:

Good news, everyone!

After a week of wreaking havoc in the house, the little squirrel finally found his way into the have-a-heart trap where he enjoyed a feast of peanuts and peanut butter around 5:30am… and then found himself dining al fresco as we moved the trap outside. It’s quiet in the house now. We will rest better knowing the critter won’t be climbing the drapes and scurrying across our bodies as we sleep.

Phew.

So now, on to our hymn – a fun-to-sing chant from the Jewish tradition, composer unknown (as many of these little chants are). It’s a refreshing change from all of the Christmas songs – not that some of them weren’t amazing, but it was a long month, and I’m glad to moving on to Holy Week.

With a little Jewish chant.

Oshana, shira oshana!
Oshana, shira oshana!
Oshana, shira oshana!
Oshana ha navi hava vshem Adonai.

So why is this listed under Palm Sunday?

It helps to know that in English, it’s “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” which is from Psalm 118:26 and is directly referenced in Mark 11:9, as Jesus rides into Jerusalem, a move I find wildly interesting.

Now this next bit has very little to do with the song, but I rather like this part of the narrative. Here’s how I explained it to the congregation this past Palm Sunday:

Here’s this man, from a faithful Jewish family, who’s got an incredibly radical and inspirational message. He has gathered people around him to learn, and to help him preach his message and share his story. He reveals in what we call miracles the healing power of love, compassion, and hope. But because he’s telling the establishment – which is simultaneously church and state – that they’re missing the point of their own faith, and because this radical spiritual message is a radical political message too, his ministry is becoming a bit of a problem for the establishment.

 Who live, work, and rule in Jerusalem.

So here’s this guy, with all these pieces – a message and a call he can’t deny, all of these lives he’s changed, all of these people following him, this sense of destiny, an angry government breathing down his neck, and he’s probably wondering why he didn’t just stay quiet and do whatever it was he was doing before he met John the Baptist.

I can tell you, no matter who you are, ministers have moments wondering why they ever answered the call. And then we remember that we could do no other.

 Anyway… while the gospels paint Jesus as this all-knowing deity, what I think is more likely true is that he arrived at this moment, with all these pieces, and yet having this vision of bringing truth, hope, healing, and love to all of “his” people. And so, he put them in motion, and played the game out in his head a bit.

In the days and weeks prior to this moment, Jesus starts playing eleventh-dimensional chess: He’s still teaching, to be sure, and we are getting some of the more political parables, like the workers in the vineyard who all get equal payment because God’s love is available to all, like the rich man who is told it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. And we also get hints from Jesus that he is seeing the costs of his ministry, that he might die, that it could be hard for him and for his closest followers.

He sees the whole board – how the moving of one piece will cause another piece to move, and another, and another.  He may not know exactly what will happen next, or what piece will react more aggressively, or what the surprise moves might be.

He may not know exactly how, but he knows he must move the first piece.

In this case, it’s saying “I have an idea! Let’s observe Passover in Jerusalem.”

Now some might argue the whole ‘riding in on a donkey’ thing was a storytelling device to connect Jesus to the prophesy of Isaiah. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Jesus was schooled enough as a faithful Jewish man to know that the iconic image of his riding in on a donkey would make some people cheer and others uncomfortable.

And so he does, riding in with people in celebration mobbing the streets to see him, and singing a first century version of “oshana! Shira oshana!” Jesus plays the crowd a bit, cheering them on, which provokes his opponents’ next move.

Eleventh-dimensional chess indeed.

Anyway. This is a sweet, fun chant to start off Holy Week.

O happy day. (Oh happy day)
Oh happy day! (Oh happy day!)
When this blog (when this blog)
Oh when this blog (when this blog)
Oh, my goodness, when this blog (when this blog)
Got to Epiphany! (Oh happy day!)

I was saying to my sister last night how tired I am getting of Christmas hymns and that thankfully it’s almost over. I somehow thought I had one more Christmas carol proper before hitting this song of the Epiphany, so imagine my joy! I mean, holy cow, it’s been since the middle of May with this Christmas stuff. But now we’re at the Epiphany, the liturgical day when the Magi arrive from the east to bring gifts to Jesus and his parents.

Now to me, it’s a pretty dubious moment, only appearing in the Gospel of Matthew, and you have to wonder if this was a storytelling trope to impress upon the earliest listeners and then readers of the importance of this child’s birth. And remember, this is the gospel that carefully details the lineage from David, so Matthew isn’t messing around here with the “this birth is important” stuff. And while the gifts are not exactly what a new mom really needs (diapers and blankets would have killed them?), they are all part of that Important Birth of An Important Person thing that Matthew’s banging on about. And I gotta say, it’s rather anathema to the whole “poor baby born in a manger” vibe the birth narrative is otherwise going for.

But I digress. (I blame the squirrel, who MIGHT have escaped finally late last night but not before ripping down the curtains in my room.)

Here we are, with this intriguing holy day, and this carol – which on its own isn’t THAT bad, except for all the terrible versions of it that we’ve heard and sung over the years that make it cloyingly annoying and trite. And at least we have one Epiphany carol, thanks to a 19th century Episcopalian named John Henry Hopkins, Jr.

We three kings of Orient are; bearing gifts we traverse afar,
field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star.

(Chorus)
O Star of wonder, star of light, star, with royal beauty bright,
westward leading, still proceeding, guide us through this perfect night.

Frankincense to offer have I, incense owns a Deity nigh.
Prayer and praising, all are raising, worship God most high.

(Chorus)

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom;
sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone-cold tomb.

(Chorus)

Born a babe on Bethlehem’s plain, gold I bring to crown him again,
love forever, ceasing never, in our hearts to reign.

(Chorus)

I give the guy credit – Hopkins tried to imbue the tune and the lyrics with majesty and import. And done right, without the drinking-song-ishness of the “Ooooh….oooohhhh” that leads into the chorus, it achieves it. But I’m sorry to say we’ve probably ruined this one in our sloppy Christmas caroling.

And so here it is. We nod to this stop in our Christian liturgical calendar, because to skip it would be inauthentic. Plus, many times we need to put this story in some context, and it’s good to have a familiar song to do it with. It’s clearly not a favorite of mine…but I don’t mind singing it today, because it means tomorrow we start Passover.

Oh happy day!

Sometimes all hope of focusing on a spiritual practice goes out the window – not because of the world events, or because of some deep tragedy. No, sometimes all hope disappears because there is a young squirrel running around the house wreaking havoc. Including running across my legs at 5am. My sister’s been dealing with this for a few days, and just now we finally have the pest control people out to plug holes in this old Victorian house and set traps, hoping we can get this poor critter out and not coming back.

So … the morning’s been fraught.

And then, I sat down to sing this odd little French carol, D’où viens tu, Bergère? and try to learn something about it.

Here’s what I know:

It’s French.

Yep, that’s pretty much all I know.

Whence, O shepherd maiden, whence came you?
Whence, O shepherd maiden, whence came you?
I come from the manger, walking on my way,
nothing ever stranger seen within my day.

What saw you there, maiden, what saw you?
What saw you there, maiden, what saw you?
I saw lying cradled there a tiny child,
in the new straw huddled, softly it was piled.

Nothing more then, maiden, nothing more?
Nothing more then, maiden, nothing more?
Mary, holy mother, nursing babe at breast,
Joseph, holy father, with the cold oppressed.

Well, I also know we’ve got some intriguing lyrics, especially the very last line – I mean, I’m glad Joseph gets a nod and the honorific “holy father”… but I’m not sure I get what it’s saying?

I also know that the only lyrics I could find in French are the first verse:

D’où viens-tu, bergère ? D’où viens-tu?
Je viens de l’étable de m’y promener!
J’ai vu un miracle, ce soir arriver!
Rien de plus, bergère? Rien de plus?
Y’a le boeuf et l’âne, qui sont par devant,
Avec leur haleine Réchauffant L’Enfant.

I’m happy for anyone to translate that for me – my French is so rusty it would give you tetanus.

Anyway. A weird morning and an odd carol. I’m curious about your impressions and experiences with it.

Along with the many Christmas albums I grew up with were some songbooks – many odd little slender volumes containing a dozen or so carols, plus the big one: the Reader’s Digest Merry Christmas Songbook.

You see, somewhere along the way, the good folks at Reader’s Digest decided to put together songbooks, and my folks bought them all. They also bought those big box set album sets full of music moods, and at least one collection of the Boston Pops, Arthur Fiedler conducting. Anyway, the songbooks were great, because although they were hardcover, they were also spiral bound, so they could sit on a piano or music stand easily. We still have a few of them – I know I can put my hands on the Christmas one, and the Family songbook, and I think Best Loved Songs.

As a child, I’d pore over these songbooks, and in some cases make up tunes to go with the ones I didn’t know. (This is before I learned how to read music.) Because I’d never heard the Huron Carol before, this one got the Little Kim Makes It Up treatment. I don’t remember the tune I used to sing to it, but I know that the first time I heard the real tune it startled me because mine was so utterly and completely different. (I had a similar experience with “Frankie and Johnny” – it took a long time for me to get my version out of my head for good.)

And the truth is, I’m still largely unfamiliar with this carol, as it’s just never made it onto any of the Christmas music collections I’ve ever owned, and somehow I have never sung it in a choir. (But God forbid we go a year and not sing some crazy version of Jingle Bells – because that’s where Christmas is at, lemme tell ya….)

Anyway, this is a sweet hymn, and according to Wikipedia, was “written in 1643 by Jean de Brébeuf, a Jesuit missionary at Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons in Canada. Brébeuf wrote the lyrics in the native language of the Huron/Wendat people; the song’s original Huron title is “Jesous Ahatonhia” (“Jesus, he is born”).” The English lyrics were written by Jesse Edgar Middletownwith (how’s that for a name?) in 1926. The tune’s origins are less clear, but I’ve seen it connected to French, Breton, and Welsh, so we’ll say … European.

‘Twas in the moon of wintertime, when all the birds had fled,
that mighty Gitchi Manitou sent angel choirs instead;
before their light the stars grew dim, and wondering hunters heard the hymn:
Jesous Ahatonhia, Jesous Ahatonhia.

Within a lodge of broken bark the tender babe was found,
a ragged robe of rabbit skin enwrapped his beauty round;
but as the hunter braves drew nigh, the angel song rang long and high:
Jesous Ahatonhia, Jesous Ahatonhia.

Since I am unfamiliar with this, I ran over to YouTube to find a version to listen and sing to, and I came across this gorgeous version by the Cambridge Singers:

Of odd note, however, is the uses of Gitchi Manitou” – an Algonquin name for god – in this Wendat carol. I don’t know if that happened in the English translation, or if there was already some intermixing of languages due to French missionary influences. Anyway, it’s an interesting note.

It’s also of note that this song reflects the tried and true “adopt and adapt” method of conversion; over and over again throughout history we see the incoming (sometimes invading) priests using local metaphors and sacred stories to tell the Christian story, so that the people they’re trying to convert (and sometimes subjugate) would find it easy to make the leap from their deeply held beliefs to include a new one, Christianity. Thus, in this carol, the babe is born “in a lodge of broken bark” and the “chiefs from afar” bring gifts of “fox and beaver pelts.”

And with that, I’ll take my leave of today’s post… the high temperatures have broken, I am at my sister’s for a few days before I head to General Assembly, and I am ready to relax a bit in the early summer cool. I just might flip through a couple of those old songbooks, and maybe make up a tune or two.

 

I don’t have much to say today – not because this lullaby hasn’t moved me to tears, but because it has.

Shelley Jackson Denham’s gentle, lush, poignant Christmas song has gotten right through to me today. I’m rather a blubbery mess, to be honest – there is so much pain, sorrow, hardship, and exhaustion in the world, and I’m feeling the weltschmerz – the world weariness – deeply right now.

And then here is this lullaby for a child who grew up to be a man who so deeply loved the world that eventually killed him. How do you not cry at the weight of all that?

Winter night, clear and bright:
a weary world is sleeping.
And then a cry fills earth and sky:
a newborn child is weeping.

(Chorus)
Hush-a-bye, lullaby,
blessed little baby.

Drops of pain flow like rain:
tell why your tears are falling:
for humankind, so frail, unkind,
or for your own life’s calling?

(Chorus)

Holy Child, Every Child,
your life will have its season.
And each new day your heart may pray
for grace, for peace, for reason.

(Chorus)

Anyway. Even through the tears, I love this one. It’s a beautiful piece, and I am grateful to sing it today, to all that are hurting and still can love.

How many of you, like me, pass this one by, year after year, because it’s an unfamiliar “title” and takes up two pages? Raise your hands.

Me too!

And how many of those with your hands up never realized this was the old spiritual “Rise Up Shepherd and Follow”?

Really? Just me?

I didn’t think so.

This is what fan of the series Kaye talks about a lot – how using only the first line can hide songs we know and love from people not giving more than a cursory glance at the page, like most of us. I mean, I only discovered this was that song because of this series, and now I feel sad for Christmasses past that didn’t get this song in celebration.

Anyway, it’s a great carol and a great spiritual, one which may have been coded to direct enslaved Africans to freedom by following the North Star. I can only find one reference to that, but it fits.

There’s a star in the East on Christmas morn,
rise up, shepherd, and follow.
It will lead to the place where the babe is born;
rise up, shepherd, and follow.

(Chorus)
Leave your ewes and leave your lambs,
rise up, shepherd, and follow.
Leave your sheep and leave your rams,
rise up, shepherd, and follow.
Follow, follow, rise up, shepherd, and follow.
Follow the star of Bethlehem,
rise up, shepherd, and follow.

If you hark to the angel’s holy word,
rise up, shepherd, and follow.
You’ll forget your flock, you’ll forget your herd;
rise up, shepherd, and follow.

(Chorus)

Of course, as with any song not our own, care must be taken to not appropriate – offering context, even on Christmas, does matter.

If you want to see it done badly, search for this song on YouTube. I promise you will find a plethora of Very White People versions of this song out there. Fortunately, there were a few sung in African American or multicultural contexts, such as this fantastic one from the Middle Community Chorus:

“Rise Up Shepherd, and Follow” :: Jan 4 @middlechurch from Middle Collegiate Church on Vimeo.

This makes me wanna rise up.

Oh, this is just a delightful carol.

I do have an affection for the medieval French tunes – there’s something so joyful and, well, interesting about them. And while this one was never high on the Christmas album hit parade as a child, I have grown to love it as an adult.

The words are another set of the ‘tell the whole story’ lyrics — which is helpful when the pieces stand alone, harder when putting together a “lessons and carols” kind of service.

Sing we now of Christmas, Noel, sing we here!
Hear our grateful praises to the babe so dear.

(Refrain)
Sing we Noel, the child is born, Noel!
Sing we now of Christmas, sing we now Noel!

Angels called to shepherds, “Leave your flocks at rest,
journey forth to Bethl’hem, find the child so blest.”

(Refrain)

In the town they found him, Joseph, and Mary mild,
seated by the manger, watching the holy child.

(Refrain)

From the eastern country came the kings afar,
bearing gifts to Bethl’hem, guided by a star.

(Refrain)
Gold and myrrh they took there, gifts of greatest price.
There was ne’er a stable so like paradise.

(Refrain)

A bit of a non-sequitur: why are Joseph and Mary always called “mild” – is it because it rhymes with “child” and it wouldn’t do for the parents of Jesus to be “wild” or “riled”, “beguiled”, or “defiled”? Just wondering. I’d think by this point in the story they’d be irritated, tired, and hangry. But that’s me.

Anyway… not much more to offer this morning. It’s a lovely piece, and it was fun to sing this morning, but on the whole, I feel Christmassed out.

I love this carol.

I love the joyfulness, the majesty, the beauty. I love the lyrics by John Francis Wade, an 18th century English Catholic – even the unfamiliar one about the shepherds. I love the tune, also by Wade (or at least transcribed by him). This might be the perfect carol of Christmas Day.

I especially love that not only does our version include the beautiful Latin first verse, it opts to use the Latin in the chorus – because somehow we have an easier time singing “adore him, the Master” (or the more familiar but not quite accurate translation, “adore him, Christ the Lord”) when we are singing it in another language.

But even that fact doesn’t bring me down today – I just love love love this carol.

Adeste, fideles, laeti triumphantes;
venite, venite in Bethlehem.
Natum videte Regem angelorum.

(Chorus)
venite, adoremus,
venite, adoremus,
venite, adoremus Dominum.

O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem.
Come and behold him, born the King of angels;

(Chorus)

Lo, humble shepherds, hasting to his cradle,
leaving their flocks in the fields, draw near.
We, too, with gladness, thither bend our footsteps;

(Chorus)

Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation;
O sing, all ye citizens of heaven above!
Glory to God, all glory in the highest;

(Chorus)

Now I should mention that this carol Does. Not. Rhyme. Not in the Latin, not in the English. And I know I’ve banged on in other posts about awkward rhyme schemes that don’t scan. So why doesn’t this bother me?

Because it’s the perfect Christmas Day carol, that’s why.

Or maybe it’s just that the way it’s crafted, it feels like it rhymes, or has some sense of completeness. I’m not sure, but really, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

Because maybe I’m not so far off thinking it’s the perfect Christmas Day carol.

—

Another photo, “Hallock Bay”, by my friend Jeremy Garretson – please buy his art!

POST UPDATED 2:15PM, 6/9/17

Wow, these Unitarians are a surly bunch.

Yesterday’s post brought up a lot of discussion on Facebook (visit my timeline and scroll down a bit) about our approaches to theology and whether we are/were guilty of weakening the Christian theology of carols, and what the remedies are. We even heard from a member of the Hymnal Commission, who talked about how difficult and nuanced the work in 1993 was, and reminding us that the Commission was made up of eight people who wrestled for months and whose “decisions did not create an obligatory canon.” And knowing what folks in our congregations had been wrestling with (in many cases, hard transitions from other Christian – particularly Roman Catholic – denominations), “There were a lot more pastoral and liturgical reasons for making certain of our decisions than theological.”

This is important for all of us – me included – to remember. It’s a helpful frame for those times when I want to quibble with theological issues in hymns, especially traditionally Christian hymns.

And it’s a good thing to remember as we look at today’s lyrics, the original first verse in German, and a literal translation of verses 1 and 2. In this, we can see that even our beloved English lyrics are an interpretation:

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht.
Alles schlaft, einsam wacht
nur das traute hochheilige Paar.
Holder Knabe im lokkigen Haar,
schlaf in himmlischer Ruh,
schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!

Quiet night, holy night,
all asleep! Save tonight
watch a dear and holy pair
their sweet boy with curly hair,
sleep in heavenly peace,
sleep in heavenly peace.

Quiet night, holy night,
shepherds first know the light
through the angel allelu,
bringing news to me, to you:
Christ who frees is here,
Christ who frees is here.

At this point my only quibble is longing for all of the German lyrics and associated literal translation. Because this is beautiful.

EDIT: After posting this on Facebook, Michael Tino asked Hymnal Commission member Mark Belletini about the translation; here is what he said (included with permission):

It was done by a German-born woman in the congregation in Hayward who insisted on being anonymous. She did not like the English version, which we sang every year from memory, first verse only as the candles burned in the racks we used. It bothered her not to sing about the curly hair, which the German clearly says. So she offered to translate it.

She thought the word ordinarily translated as “Savior” had been cheapened by the TV evangelists who were all over the place in those days. She had seen the concentration camps opened, the emaciated survivors freed and she said that is a better image of the German word. I concurred, saying that our Christian Socinian ancestors understood Savior not in the Evangelisch way of bloody death but in the practicing of the Sermon on the Mount. So I took her version to the other seven [on the Hymnal Commission] and they loved it.

We knew with the candles, few would sing it, but only the first verse of the traditional English. But from time to time we in Hayward would sing the original lullaby (with guitar of course, as was done originally) It made our German translator especially happy. I asked those who knew German to sing it in German first. Then Renate’s translation.

Makes me want to use this version all the time now. Now back to the original post:

I will note that when possible, I like to have a soloist or a choir sing the first verse in German to begin the candle lighting ritual at Christmas Eve – it goes German verse, sung – spoken intro with instrumental (guitar preferred) or hummed underscore – everyone sing in English while light is passed. It’s a gorgeous framing and makes that special moment even more special.

Anyway. I’m gonna chew on the difference between “Christ who frees is here” and “Christ the savior is born” for a while…. have a good spring day.