A Christmas song we won't be attempting any time, ever. (Hint: even if you don't read music, see if you can figure out which words belong to which notes).
But maybe this isn't the silliest Christmas score ever... Occasionally, at this time of year, I begin to wonder what exactly we're singing about, especially some of the older 'faves'. I noticed that I felt a bit cringey this week when we got into Verse 2 of O Come All Ye Faithful: "lo, he abhors not the virgin's womb". Well, yes, ahem. "What's not to like?" is the question that springs to mind - warm, nurturing, fresh, not even secondhand...I suppose the implication is - if we really want to get into it - unsullied. And as soon as I start to unpack this, I'm feeling pretty uncomfortable about all the shadows lurking here. This just raises so many questions for me. My church childhood equipped me to be able to explain the intended meaning, but I'm not sure I'm quite satisfied with that explanation any more, I find.
We'll sing it this way this year, because it's what's on the page, and it's December the day after tomorrow, and the first day of Christmas singing in public for us, and I've only started to think about this - too far into our preparation. And because people love the classic carols, and we have to throw a few in amongst the more recent seasonal songs and the outright unChristmas music that we take out busking.
I imagine there are plenty of people in the choir who have to park their scruples to some degree or other in order to participate fully at this time of year, and I want to honour all of you who do that. I've been talking to the choirs this week about the central message of this season: our common humanity, compassion, the hope of peace for all of us, and most of all, love, in its biggest, most generous sense. Some believe the biblical story of Christmas, some don't, and some have other faiths and beliefs, and some have none. And somehow we manage to get together and sing "Glory to God in the highest" and "For us a child is born this day" and many other familiar phrases from Christian dogma. And somehow everyone managed to put aside their own angle on it, and just deliver the message, connecting with whatever in it is meaningful for them.
For some, I imagine that requires much more effort and creative thinking than for others. All of it is appreciated, and I want you to know that. Those of you who believe every word, thank you for being part of what we do, and bringing your particular, indispensible quality of sincerity and storytelling to our music. Those of you who think we're a giant cosmic accident, doomed to extinction whether or not we cause it ourselves, thank you for your commitment to our collective musicmaking and fundraising, as human beings caring for each other. Thank you to those of other faiths who graciously sing about the foundation faith of our culture, and - I imagine - reference it in your heads back to your own faith. That's real generosity. And all of you in between, the hopers and wishers and doubters (this is territory I inhabit too), thank you for giving it your best shot and showing up with your hearts open.
One of our lovely members wrote this to me in an email this week, and I found it helped enormously. Maybe you'll like it too:
Yes, it's love. It's in and all around us, the only thing that we can't dispute - the light that will always overpower the dark in the end.
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