A thought for the season by English poet John Betjeman: Advent 1955
The Advent wind begins to stir
With sea-like sounds in our Scotch fir,
It’s dark at breakfast, dark at tea,
And in between we only see
Clouds hurrying across the sky
And rain-wet roads the wind blows dry
And branches bending to the gale
Against great skies all silver pale
The world seems travelling into space,
And travelling at a faster pace
Than in the leisured summer weather
When we and it sit out together,
For now we feel the world spin round
On some momentous journey bound –
Journey to what? to whom? to where?
The Advent bells call out ‘Prepare,
Your world is journeying to the birth
Of God made Man for us on earth.’
And how, in fact, do we prepare
The great day that waits us there –
For the twenty-fifth day of December,
The birth of Christ?
For some it means
An interchange of hunting scenes
On coloured cards,
And I remember
Last year I sent out twenty yards,
Laid end to end, of Christmas cards
To people that I scarcely know –
They’d sent a card to me, and so
I had to send one back. Oh dear!
Is this a form of Christmas cheer?
Or is it, which is less surprising,
My pride gone in for advertising?
The only cards that really count
Are that extremely small amount
From real friends who keep in touch
And are not rich but love us much
Some ways indeed are very odd
By which we hail the birth of God.
We raise the price of things in shops,
We give plain boxes fancy tops
And lines which traders cannot sell
Thus parcell’d go extremely well
We dole out bribes we call a present
To those to whom we must be pleasant
For business reasons. Our defence is
These bribes are charged against expenses
And bring relief in Income Tax
Enough of these unworthy cracks!
‘The time draws near the birth of Christ’.
A present that cannot be priced
Given two thousand years ago
Yet if God had not given so
He still would be a distant stranger
And not the Baby in the manger.
Sir John Betjeman, CBE, was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death in 1984. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture. He began his career as a journalist and ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate and a much-loved figure on British television.
Love’s Multiple Meanings
Craig Hella Johnson is an American choral conductor, composer, and arranger. He was born on June 15, 1962, in Crow Wing County, Minnesota
One unique aspect of Johnson’s programming is his signature “collage” style, or composed programs that marry music and poetry to seamlessly blend the sacred and secular as well as the classical and contemporary.
In an interview he notes: Music is a spiritual language of the freest kind. It doesn’t matter what your denomination or nonbelief or tradition is, because it’s about connecting with something larger than ourselves.
This work combines the well known Christmas carol Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming, with a poem, The Rose.
This was the final song of our Christmas concert yesterday. As you listen, it may bring a tear or two.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy53eILctNQ&t=12s)