Born That Man No More May Die

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year” ~ E. Scrooge

 

We have arrived at December at last; I trust we can all agree that Christmas music is at now acceptable. For me it started in the summer. My Pandora commonly shuffles over to ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ station and I find myself humming ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ in July. My long-suffering family must bear with ‘Silent Night’ and ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ on long car trips to the beach.

Thus it is and thus it shall ever be.

I am not ignorant to the excesses of Christmas. Nor to its sometimes pettiness. But in the main, it is the Best Time of the Year. If the malls are packed – what of it? Those folks are shopping for others. The neighbor strings those gaudy lights? He’s engaging his community on some level. There’s something to be said for that. Stressed about giving the right gift? Hug ‘em and tell them you love them and mean every word. We need that every day. Screw the gifts.

As a boy of 10 or 11, I remember clearly the thought that my favorite thing about Christmas was having family pile into our house. I wasn’t too interested in gifts – but games, and football, and jokes and fun. Just pour it on.

Easter it seems to me is about Victory. Christ steps triumphant from the tomb. Spring has arrived and we are reminded that God reigns forever. But Christmas is about Hope. For a world that was (and is) impossibly mangled, Hope is found in the most unexpected of places. Wrapped in rags in a barn. Tears spring to my eyes at the thought. How fragile is Hope – how mighty is Love.

25 days – count them down. Then only 365 more.

The Good, the Better and the Best

The Danish Symphony Orchestra _ The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Sometimes we run across a little slice of art that bridges cultures while at the same time defining culture. Music has that power. Sounds can be defined drearily by the engineer as waves and pulses (see ‘yanni vs. laurel’). But no scientist can explain what’s going on in the heart by great music. How the heartbeat can quicken or tears spring to the eyes with just a few evocative notes. Like smell, one may be transported to another time and place in an instant.

I wish I knew more about music – but I don’t. I joke that I can barely play the radio. And I never had a music appreciation course – the engineering curriculum didn’t really encourage that unless (as mentioned above) it involved frequencies and amplitudes. I look at guitars and violins and wonder why they are called ‘instruments’. The ought to be called ‘magic’ – because that’s a lot closer to the mark.

Still I listen to magical music – this piece written by an Italian and performed by a Danish Orchestra about a time in America over a hundred years ago using ‘waa – waa – waa’s’ and whistles and it works. It’s freakish. When the soprano comes in around 3:40 you think this can’t get any marvelously weird and wonderful. The whole thing builds to a feverish set of sounds that defines the American west. I love it. When my daughter and I started our podcast, we selected Yo-Yo Ma’s version of this same music – since we were talking mostly movies. It was perfect.

I believe that God in His grace provides us all with gifts. We call it a tragedy when we see those gifts wasted. That’s exactly what it is – tragic. I hope that heaven makes up for that. That we will spring forth with gifts of music – or art – or words – that give rise to the soul. And honors Him from whom all blessings flow.

P.S. – and check out the ear rings!

Writer's Block

“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy, and that hard.”   ~ Neil Gaiman 


Here’s a secret about me; when I get those annoying security questions that are intended to protect my digital footprint, I always answer the favorite teacher with the same name. Chapman.

In the early 1980s, I was a nondescript and thoroughly uninteresting teenager. Lacking any vision or, in my defense, any encouragement, I bounced from class to class equally happy and unhappy with mediocrity. Yes, I was on the college path – but I found that path to be as dry as I was.  In the absence of a better plan, it at least provided a path. Our high school was large by Southwest Virginia standards. As I would find out later, it paled in comparison to the classes and resources of our northern Virginian cousins.