O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

This past Sunday evening, the first Sunday in Advent, Mrs. RWP and I sat down with ten other families in our church’s fellowship hall and made Advent wreaths. The one we made looks not unlike the one in the photograph above if you take away everything red or gold. Then each family lit one purple candle and our pastor led in several prayers to which we responded, “Lord, have mercy” and we sang “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and after our pastor spoke for a little while we all repeated the Lord’s Prayer together. It was a sweet time.

We were encouraged to take our Advent wreaths home with us and on succeeding Sunday evenings during Advent to light two candles, then three (the third one, pink, represents joy), and so forth, until the evening the Christ Child is born.

“Ho hum,” you may be saying. “Same old same old. So what?”

So what is that it is not same old same old for us. This is the first time in both of our 70+ years that either of us has ever observed Advent. We both have been Christians for most of those years, but we attended churches that considered observance of Advent unnecessary, superfluous, meaningless, an empty tradition.

We have discovered that we disagree. We find it beautiful and inspiring, with the emphasis in exactly the right place -- anticipating with hope and joy the coming of the Redeemer.

Here is an essay (it happens to have been written by a Roman Catholic writer) called “The End of Advent” that is worth reading. It first appeared in 2007.

This year, let’s not be so eager for the Christmas goodies (I can almost hear the seagulls in Finding Nemo crying, “Mine! Mine!” as they dive for fish) that we miss Advent.

Ist das nicht ein mellow sound? Ja, das ist ein mellow sound.

For your Advent listening pleasure, here is an a cappella rendition of Es Ist Ein Ros Ensprungen (1:32) from 2007, complete with a natural echo chamber.

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us (in more ways than one)

...we have a whole month of stuff like this (3:44) to look forward to.

I dislike “The Little Drummer Boy” (advocates salvation by works) and “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (doesn't mention Bethlehem in 6 B.C. even once) and the barking dogs version of “Jingle Bells” (links general non-religious midwinter activities with University of Georgia football fans everywhere), but I especially abhor renditions of “O Holy Night” by the untalented. This one, however, is a definite put-on and had me laughing so hard I had tears rolling down my face. But it could have been real. That is the really scary part. Only later did it occur to me that enjoying it so much might be sacrilegious.

In case you too are wondering, I have installed lightning rods over my little portion of Blogland.

Who are you thanking?

Listen. Watch. The Lincoln Minster School Choir makes it clear (2:26).

The song “Now Thank We All Our God” (a translation from the German “Nun danket alle Gott”) is a Christian hymn that was written circa 1636 by Lutheran pastor Martin Rinkart (1586–1649) in Eilenberg, Saxony, Germany. It was translated into English in the 19th Century by Catherine Winkworth.

Martin Rinkart came to Eilenburg, Saxony at the beginning of the Thirty Years War. The walled city became the refuge for political and military fugitives, but the result was overcrowding, and deadly pestilence and famine. Armies overran it three times. The Rinkart home was a refuge for victims, even though he was often hard-pressed to provide for his own family. During the height of a severe plague in 1637, Rinkart was the only surviving pastor of four who had served Eilenberg, and he conducted as many as 50 funerals in a day. He performed more than 4000 funerals in that year, including that of his wife.

Still he could write:

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

In tough economic times, in times of political unrest and terroristic threats, in war, famine, pestilence, and even the face of death, can we do less?

[Editor's note. Just for the record, I wrote this post a day or two before this presidential faux pas occurred. President Obama should have been reading my blog. -- RWP, Nov. 26, 2011]

A penny for your thoughts

Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall (1882)

Wikipedia has this to say about the Mayflower:

“The Mayflower was the ship that transported the English Separatists, better known as the Pilgrims, from a site near the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, (which would become the capital of Plymouth Colony), in 1620. There were 102 passengers and a crew of 25–30.

“The vessel left England on September 6, 1620 (Old Style)/ September 16 (New Style), and after a grueling 66-day journey marked by disease, which claimed two lives, the ship dropped anchor inside the hook tip of Cape Cod (Provincetown Harbor) on November 11/November 21. The Mayflower was originally destined for the mouth of the Hudson River, near present-day New York City, at the northern edge of England’s Virginia colony, which itself was established with the 1607 Jamestown Settlement. However, the Mayflower went off course as the winter approached, and remained in Cape Cod Bay. On March 21/31, 1621, all surviving passengers, who had inhabited the ship during the winter, moved ashore at Plymouth, and on April 5/15, the Mayflower, a privately commissioned vessel, returned to England. In 1623, a year after the death of captain Christopher Jones, the Mayflower was most likely dismantled for scrap timber in Rotherhithe, London.

“The Mayflower has a famous place in American history as a symbol of early European colonization of the future United States. According to popular history, English Dissenters called Pilgrims undertook the voyage to escape religious persecution in England. The story of the Mayflower as symbol of religious freedom is a staple of any American history textbook.”

I’ve saved the best for last.

Here is a list of the passengers.

Now here’s that penny...

Old songs are good

...but sometimes new ones are even better.

Here’s a new Christmas carol by a man named Donald Moore. He wrote it in 2010.

“Carol of the Star” (2:39)

Here are our old friends, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

...singing another of my favorite Christmas carols. This one is from Poland, and it is called “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly.” (4:10)

Listen closely to the words, as they apply all year ’round, not just at the Christmas season...

They even apply on Thanksgiving Day when you’re stuffing yourself with turkey.