IN A DARK TIME: YOU HOLD THE CANDLE AND I'LL HOLD YOUR HAND

For a number of years, my friend Warren Hanson and I have collaborated on an annual Christmas song. I write the lyrics and he composes the music. (My part of this year's song is half finished.) This is the song written in 2001, just a few months after 9/11. I offer it as a blog Christmas card. Alas, it is without Warren's beautiful melody.

(The first two verses are a dialog between Joseph and Mary; the third verse between a shepherd boy and his father; the fourth -- as in many carols -- is a kind of prayer. )

Mary, the night is dark, you’re getting weary;

I thought we’d find Bethlehem long before now.

I know a little inn – the keeper’s a friend of mine –

he’ll find a bed for you somewhere, somehow.

Mary, of course I will stay with you always,

though your “angel’s message” I don’t understand.

Now, while we’re looking for light in the darkness,

I’ll hold the candle and you hold my hand.

Joseph, the message is our little baby,

and you are the angel that guides us tonight,

over this rocky road, under this starry sky –

look at that one that is shining so bright!

Joseph, what keeps you so true to your promise,

when this isn’t anything like you had planned?

Could it be love? Do you feel love around us?

You hold the candle and I’ll hold your hand.

Father, I’m frightened; the whole sky was glowing!

The nighttime was brighter than sunshine at noon.

The sound of a thousand wings – something was happening!

Now it’s so dark – just that star and the moon.

Father, you fell to your knees in that brightness.

Yes, till the angel’s song told me to stand!

Now let us go find that Bethlehem stable;

I’ll hold the candle and you hold my hand.

Dear baby Jesus, we follow the shepherds –

follow a star to the place where you sleep.

Mary and Joseph rest; you sleep in gentleness –

a little light shining in shadows so deep.

Jesus, you’ve been the light from the beginning –

And, on that day when night covered the land,

You are the word that we heard in the darkness:

“I’ll hold the candle and you hold my hand.”

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Last year's Christmas song post is here.

Warren has made a CD, "Christmas Always," of his arrangements of a number of our songs, as well as some of his own. You can order it from Warren's site, here.

(c) Richard Jorgensen

A FRIEND REQUEST FROM GRANDPA

I have, of late, had a recurring vision. It is of an old man in a remote cottage, at his desk with a ham radio, sending messages into the night to his fellow radio operators. Except, I think, it is not a ham radio, but a computer, and he’s writing on Facebook.

The meaning of this vision for me is that, in spite of the important controversies plaguing Facebook,* it really is a superb (and still-developing) means by which people can communicate with one another. This may strike the reader as an understatement, but the epiphanic part of my vision is that, beyond posted photos of youthful drunkenness and minute-by-minute reports of children’s cuteness and what one had for lunch, Facebook – and whatever it evolves into – will certainly become a meaningful connection with the world - and, more to the point, with friends old and new - for the elderly and isolated.

Although people in both generations have wondered if “the parents” should get involved with Facebook (thus somehow invading the turf of the young and diminishing the cool factor), it is fast becoming as commonplace as the telephone. The use of the telephone, too, is part of my new Facebook revelation. Until recently, I supposed that the phone would be preferable to all other distant-communication technologies because, after all, you can speak directly to another human being. I’ve come to believe, however, that Facebook (and e-mail, too) offer more depth of communication – on an ongoing basis – than the telephone. Of course there are exceptions – a forty-five minute phone conversation between two people in love is undoubtedly more intimate than a series of e-mails, and it will always be good to hear the voice of an old friend. But a phone call, even with a good friend, will always come to that “er... uh... well, den….” moment (not to mention the delay and over-talking that happens with long-distance and cell calls – what’s that all about?); a similar juncture in an e-mail or Facebook message is an opportunity for more thought, or to go on to the next point. In that regard, an e-mail or Facebook message is more like an old-fashioned letter (and I mean old-fashioned – from the days when the letter was it), than it is like a telephone call. (Although it does seem odd to crow about a progression that goes from the spoken back to the written word.**)

I want to emphasize that I am speaking of e-mail or Facebook messages that go beyond the trivial; what I have in mind are little essays of communication, again, like letters. (When I get an e-mail from a friend, I’m disappointed if it’s brief. Am I running against the tide?) This is not to say that there is not an appropriate place for the quickly-dashed Facebook report, even from the old guy in the little cottage. (I just posted, “Hey, we get to fill our krumkake tubes with whipped cream on Christmas Eve!”) I guess my point is that the combination of off-hand quips and weightier conversation that the Facebook/e-mail medium makes possible offers a sense of connectedness that, while no match for sitting across a pub table with someone, has something of the immediate feel of real communication. It has the sense of keeping you connected.


OK, I’ll say it, maybe I’m thinking of either Caryl or myself alone -- widowed. It seems that Facebook and e-mail would go a long way toward enhancing the quality of life of the elderly – especially the isolated elderly. So I'm not talking about an amazed, “Hey, Granny’s on Facebook!” but, rather, “Geez, Granny’s on Facebook all the time – she uses it more than I do!"


Studies show that the home-bound elderly receive, on average, one visit per month – from anybody. Facebook and e-mail can reach into that void with real depth of communication, and, all right, maybe even a report every-once-in-a-while – between old friends – of what one had for lunch, or a posted picture of a cute grandkid.

____________________________________________________

*Issues of privacy and “tricky” advertising are very important and need to be addressed with more urgency than they have been so far; thus, my endorsement of Facebook is not without hesitation.

**Tim Wu, in his new book, “The Master Switch,” reports that when the telephone was invented, the telegraph magnates laughed and said, “Well, maybe it can be used to tell someone that they have a telegram waiting.” Later, they tried to kill the new technology.

What happens when all those aging computer users start to forget all those passwords and user names, stranding all that information on their hard-drives or in the ether? Another issue for another time.

 I also opined on Facebook in this earlier blog post.

TWO POEMS FOR CHRISTMAS

Christmas reflections that press against the normal cheer of the season, from two poets who left us in the last decade.


First, from the bleak, sere, but ultimately faith-haunted R. S. Thomas:


THE COMING


And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look, he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows: a bright
Serpent, a river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.

On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The Sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.


And, from the wonderful Madeleine L'Engle:


THE TREE


The children say the tree must reach the ceiling,
And so it does, angel on topmost branch, 
Candy canes and golden globes and silver chains,
Trumpets that toot, and birds with feathered tails.
Each year we say, each year we fully mean:
"This is the loveliest tree of all." This tree
Bedecked with love and tinsel reaches heaven.
A pagan throwback may have brought it here
Into our room, and yet these decked-out boughs
Can represent those other trees, the one 
Through which we fell in pride, when Eve forgot
That freedom is man's freedom to obey
And to adore, not to replace the light
With disobedient darkness and self-will.
On Twelfth Night when we strip the tree
And see its branches bare and winter cold
Outside the comfortable room, the tree
Is then the tree on which all darkness hanged,
Completing the betrayal that began
With that first stolen fruit. And then, O God,
This is the tree that Simon bore uphill,
This is the tree that held all love and life.
Forgive us, Lord, forgive us for that tree.
But now, still decked, adorned, in joy arrayed
For these great days of Christmas thanks and song,
This is the tree that lights our faltering way,
For when man's first and proud rebellious act
Had reached its nadir on that hill of skulls
These shining, glimmering boughs remind us that
The knowledge that we stole was freely given
And we were sent the Spirit's radiant strength
That we might know all things. We grasp for truth
And lose it till it comes to us by love.
The glory of Lebanon shines on this Christmas tree,
The tree of life that opens wide the gates.
The children say the tree must reach the ceiling,
And so it does: for me the tree has grown so high
It pierces through the vast and star-filled sky.

"The Coming," by R.S. Thomas, from "Collected Poems 1945-1990" Phoenix Press. (More on R.S. Thomas here  , here , and here.)


"The Tree," by Madeleine L'Engle, from "A Widening Light: Poems of the Incarnation"
Luci Shaw, editor