Christmas is as easy to hear as it is to see.
You’re on the bread aisle minding your own, trying to remember to get milk too, when you realize Andy Williams is reminding you in his rich, bronze-voiced way that It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, what with much mistletoeing and hearts all a-glowing and all like that.
The sounds of Christmas. Alvin and the Chipmunks. Jingle Bells. Merle Haggard hoping we can make it through December. Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, even though I wouldn’t know a chestnut if it hit me right in the … chest.
The sounds of children cutting deals with Santa, grandma cursing the flour sifter, your could-be-insane uncle’s Zippo, firing up another non-filtered.
Joy to the world.
In line with sounds of the season, we annually craft some carols, Southern-themed:
“I’m dreaming of a white cornbread,
Just like the ones I used to know.
One that melts the butter,
Makes stomachs flutter,
And fills you up from head to toe.
I’m dreaming of a white cornbread,
In every skillet that’s in sight.
May the sides be crispy, to bite,
And may all your cornbreads be just right.”
Or, how about . . .
“Pork skins roasting on an open fire.
Chittlins’ nipping at your nose.
Willie and Waylon being sung by the fire,
While dad spends Christmas Eve at Lowe’s.
Everybody knows some buttermilk and hogshead cheese
Helps to make the day a ball.
Although it’s been said many times, many ways,
Merry Christmas, to y’all.”
It’s a work in progress, like …
“Outside the pickup’s running
The gun rack’s shiny and new.
Come on it’s lovely weather
For a truck ride together with you.”
Thankfully, the most important songs were written at the dawn of time and wait as gifts for us to receive and to sing with sincerity, even as the angels sang, that long–ago Judean night, as Luke recorded:
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,
goodwill toward men.”
Peace and goodwill came to earth, to men, in the flesh and as a baby. Only God could have thought of something like that.
William Billings, regarded as America’s first choral composer, captured — at least as well as a human mind can — the mystery of the incarnation in his Shepherd’s Carol, composed in New England in the mid-1700s.
“Seek not in courts or palaces,
nor royal curtains draw.
But search the stable, see your God
extended on the straw.”
God, extended on the straw.
Extended, as a baby, a stretching newborn. Extended, from a heavenly throne to an earthly manger. Extended, to mankind and to man, to each of us, individually.
God extends his hand. Even to me. Even to you.
Christmas is always the opportunity to receive the best gift of all, a new birth in our old selves. And a new song the Psalmist told us about.
“He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God . . ..”
Now some 2,000 years after Christ’s birth, the message is the same. A 19th century minister named Phillips Brooks reminds us, each year at this time, that the Good News is everlasting. If we choose to be quiet, we might even hear the song, the new song, born in a manger.
“How silently, how silently
the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive him still,
the dear Christ enters in.”
If no one’s wished you Merry Christmas yet, let me be the first. Here’s hoping we can get in tune with the baby and ourselves and each other, and make this our best song yet.
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu
