it's Christmas...

...full of complete joy...in celebrating a family birthday...singing the descant to 'Once in Royal David's City' at midnight mass...and soaking in the spirit, food & 'spirits' of our first Christmas in Wonderful W. But wait...there's more to come!

O Antiphons, part eight...

December 23: O Emmanuel...

O Emmanuel, Rex et Legifer noster
exspectatio Gentium, et Salvator earum:
veni ad salvandum nos, Domine, Deus noster.

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver,
the Desire of all nations and their Salvation:
Come and save us, O Lord our God.

O Emmanuel
O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without,
O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.
Come to us, Wisdom, come unspoken Name
Come Root, and Key and King, and holy Flame,
O quickened little wick so tightly curled,
Be folded with us into time and place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace
And make a womb of all this wounded world.
O heart of heaven beating in the earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,
To touch a dying world with new-made hands
And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.

-- Malcolm Guite

O Antiphons, final...

Ghent altarpiece by Jan VanEyck

A click on the above painting will take you to a Website that has, toward the bottom, a listing of the antiphons with an audio file of a corresponding Latin chant for each.

O Antiphons, part seven...

December 22: O Rex Gentium...

O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum,
lapisque angularis qui facis utraque unum:
veni, et salva hominem.

O King of the nations, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one:
Come and save the human race,
which you fashioned from clay.

O Rex Gentium

O King of our desire whom we despise,
King of the nations never on the throne,
Unfound foundation, cast-off cornerstone,
Rejected joiner, making many one,
You have no form or beauty for our eyes,
A King who comes to give away his crown,
A King within our rags of flesh and bone.
We pierce the flesh that pierces our disguise,
For we ourselves are found in you alone.
Come to us now and find in us your throne,
O King within the child within the clay,
O hidden King who shapes us in the play
Of all creation. Shape us for the day
Your coming Kingdom comes into its own.

-- Malcolm Guite

Dale Warland Singers: Spaseniye Sodelal

An Advent YouTube gift for this day, bringing yet more splendor lucis to my soul: *Spaseniye Soledal, a Kievan Synodal Chant by Pavel Chesnokov (translation: Salvation is created in the midst of the earth, O God, O our God. Alleluia.)

Click on the above photo to watch and hear this wonder.

*This video is mis-named - Otche Nash is an 'Our Father'.

The Dale Warland Singers is perhaps the finest choral group ever. His artistry and choice of spirit-slaying repertoire had a profound influence on me. With his retirement, the group has disbanded, rather than finding a new leader.

O Antiphons, part six...

December 21: O Oriens...

O Splendor lucis aeternae,
veni, et illumina sedentes
in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

Splendor of light eternal
and sun of righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness
and the shadow of death.

O Oriens (Paradiso XXX:61)

First light and then first lines along the east
To touch and brush a sheen of light on water
As though behind the sky itself they traced
The shift and shimmer of another river,
Flowing unbidden from its hidden source;
The Day-Spring, the eternal Prima Vera.
Blake saw it too. Dante and Beatrice
Are bathing in it now, away upstream...
So every trace of light begins a grace
In me, a beckoning. The smallest gleam
Is somehow a beginning and a calling;
"Sleeper awake, the darkness was a dream
For you will see the Dayspring at your waking,
Beyond your long last line the dawn is breaking."

-- Malcolm Guite

it's advent...

...giving thanks for Malcolm Guite's Advent sonnets and dipping a baby toe into Christmas with one tree up 'and a Bix-by-ee un-der the tree.

O Antiphons, part five...

December 20: O Clavis David...

O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel;
qui aperis, et nemo claudit;
claudis, et nemo aperit:
veni et educ vinctum de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris et umbra mortis.

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

O Clavis
Even in the darkness where I sit
And huddle in the midst of misery
I can remember freedom, but forget
That each dark clasp, sharp and intricate,
Must find a counter-clasp to meet its guard
Particular, exact and intimate,
The clutch and catch that meshes with its ward.
I cry out for the key I threw away
That turned and over turned with certain touch
And with the lovely lifting of a latch
Opened my darkness to the light of day.
O come again, come quickly, set me free.

-- Malcolm Guite

Malcolm Guite...

I feel a bit as if I am on holy ground. This, this angelic step happened a few days ago in a way that often repeats in blessing: a serendipitous stroke of computer keyboard keys and - voila! - something new and profound enters through a light-filled door.

So it is with Malcolm Guite: an incredible poet and musician, theologian and teacher, person and angel.

I've enjoyed perusing his site and 'meeting' him. And, I believe, there's always going to be more, with him.

It seems he is writing a third book of poetry which may center around the O Antiphons. For now, I am enjoying his incredible, soul-encouraging sonnets on each of them.

O Antiphons, part four...

December 19th: O Radix Jesse...

O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum,
super quem continebunt reges os suum,
quen Gentes deprecabuntur:
veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.

O Root of Jesse, stand as a sign among the peoples;
before you kings will shut their mouths,
to you the nations will make their prayer:
Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.

O Radix
All of us sprung from one deep-hidden seed,
Rose from a root invisible to all.
We knew the virtues once of every weed;
But, severed from the roots of ritual,
We surf the surface of a wide-screen world
And find no virtue in the virtual.
We shrivel on the edges of a wood
Whose heart we once inhabited in love.
Now we have need of you, forgotten Root,
The stock and stem of every living thing
Whom once we worshiped in the sacred grove.
For now is winter, now is withering
Unless we let you root us deep within,
Under the ground of being, graft us in.

-- Malcolm Guite

O Antiphons, part three...

December 18th: O Adonai

O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel,
qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,
et ei in Sina legem dedisti:

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,
who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush
and gave him the law on Sinai:
Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm

O Adonai

Unsayable, you chose to speak one tongue
Unseeable, you gave yourself away,
the Adonai, the Tetragramaton
Grew by a wayside in the light of day.
O you who dared to be a tribal God,
To own a language, people and a place,
Who chose to be exploited and betrayed,
If so you might be met with face to face,
Come to us here, who would not find you there,
Who chose to know the skin and not the pith,
Who heard no more than thunder in the air,
Who marked the mere events and not the myth.
Touch the bare branches of our unbelief
And blaze again like fire in every leaf.

-- Malcom Guite

O Antiphons, part two...

December 17th: O Sapientia:

O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti,
attingens a fine usque ad finem,
fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia:
veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other mightily,
and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.

O Sapientia
I cannot think unless I have been thought
Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken
I cannot teach except as I am taught
Or break the bread except as I am broken.
O Mind behind the mind through which I seek,
O Light within the light by which I see,
O Word beneath the words with which I speak
O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me
O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me
O Memory of time, reminding me
My Ground of Being, always grounding me
My Maker’s Bounding Line, defining me
Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring
Come to me now, disguised as everything.

-- Malcolm Guite

part one: O Antiphons...a day late...

In the weavings of a mystical web page, whose threads of inspiration include Julian of Norwich and a modern day poet, a treasure of 'O Antiphons' was grace-fully stumbled upon.

They are not as mysterious as they seem. Most, if not all of us, already know the 'O Antiphons' through the almost universally familiar Advent hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, with its verses all beginning with the same impassioned plea, "O Come..." (Here, a beautiful and concise webpage on the Antiphons.)

There are seven "O Antiphons", one for each of the seven days leading up to Christmas Eve. They are, in fact, chanted this way in many corners of the world, as singular statements, chained together in time, out of time...defining a season of waiting. December 17th would be the 'First Day of O Antiphons'. And, so, I'm a day late.

To follow, a post on each of the Antiphons, on the appropriate day. From the heart of poet, musician, and priest, Malcolm Guite, an interpretation of each antiphon will be included in the form of a sonnet. I think of it as a sort of seven-day Advent, or perhaps Emmanuel calendar gift from him.

Today, I rejoice: we'll be gifted with two - to catch up.

snow day...

I hear Fr. C playing the piano upstairs: Advent III hymns...the ones he won't get to sing this year.

From Saturday late night through Sunday afternoon, a dramatic storm delightfully dumped about two feet of snow on our town, bringing life to a winter wonderland standstill. The local television station announced church closures. Even the 'community mega-church' canceled ('They have no concept of the Lord's Day', Fr. C muttered)! Well, WE don't cancel...WE just can't come, was his profound proclamation.

So we proceeded to experience some elements of an 'ordinary Sunday' -- the norm for most in this country, but a never for us. In between snapping pictures of various stages of 'white' development, the dona de casa would make omelets. As I opened the carton of eggs purchased the prior afternoon at a Chicago Trader Joe's, the declaration on the inside jumped out at me: This is the day that the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!

And, so we did. Frosted with magical grace, even the chores of the day (OK...I didn't do much shoveling...) had a lightness about them.

Early morning island serenity...but there's "more" to come...

After snow blowing before 6am & showering, dressing:
still not going to church...and there's more to come...

Lucy pondering (lack of) backyard options...

The pre-6am work majorly undone...

Lucy leaped and loped through the backyard ('movie at 11')...

"Upholstery in white": Deck table and chairs, an eery and ghostly landscape.

Wait -- isn't that blob on the far right our Christmas Tree????

Lucy and I brave the snowy wind to walk in a truck's wake on the silent street...


Target boots save the day!

Jesus shops for sandals...

At BuyNothingChristmas.org, there is a marvelous tract - a tongue in cheek excursion with Jesus as he shops for sandals. Click here for the first page, and then 'next page-it' to the end.

This website's concept of drawing back from Christmas consumerism is something I found winning and persuasive last year. Still do! What really struck me this year, as I was again tickled by the tract and its invitation to see shopping through Jesus' eyes, was much more than the obvious and total inanity of Jesus shopping. This time, I read the comments and was just astounded at how people can take something so seriously and unimaginatively. And thereby miss the point. Talk about a plethora of suggestions as to what he should have done, with some complaints about 'blasphemy' (Jesus doesn't know how to pray). It's not about that! Yes, thankfully, some commenters got the point: 'Jesus shopping' does make us uncomfortable. He certainly wouldn't descend into the consumer mosh pit - then or now.

But to sum up a discomfort that stems from this: How strongly we feel we know exactly what Jesus wants, thinks, should do, should require us to do. The temptation is to treat Jesus like a super action figure that we can pose to fit our own purpose or foist onto others as a reflection of ourselves.

I've always been entranced by the concept of relationship...of 'hanging out', in a manner of speaking. Enjoying his presence without putting words in his mouth or needing to dissect something. No 'projecting' and making him in our own image. No squeezing him to fit a tangible mold. As humans, we love to pin something down and tear its wings and heart out. In great contrast, I recently heard a friend describe with awe and gratitude the discovery of 'just being' with Him...removing the shoes of our heart's feet and basking in awesome presence...and nothing more. Maybe then we can surpass all knowing or 'think-we-know'ing and find something truer than we though possible.

The mystics were great at this. May we take a lesson from them.

in or out? bixby in the driver's seat...again...

A pic from happier & warmer times...

Inspired by Catsinger's delightful, side-splitting and publishable 'Cat-mas Carols', here's a tribute to Bixby's evil- cute-ness, evidenced by a game of cat and mouse at the open doorway to our icy deck this morning. I thought he wanted out. And thus the drama began. (Bixby's comments/interruptions in...what else...orange...)

(Sung to the tune of Love, Look Away, from Flower Drum Song)

Bix, look away;
Bix, come away right now!
Move while I shut the door.
Move, or your a$$ is... MEOW*

Please do not play;
Please do not toy with me!
Frost forms upon my nose;
Toes, numb as they can be.

So nonchalant...
So 'in control'...
Twisting the knife,
Make me the fool.

Since you can see
It really matters to me.
Strrrrrrretching the point, she'll see!
Come away! Move away! What'd you say?
Meow-ME**

Translations:
* 'whatever'
** 'Geez...I'm really not sure... Actually can't commit on this. I'll give it some consideration and get (not) right back to you on it...

yup...it's advent...

It's Advent. Specifically, somewhere between the second and third Sundays of this approximately four week season. In our own hearts, household and lives we 'celebrate' this season. It's one of waiting, preparing...quietness, introspection...and, actually, some sense of penitential awareness and action.

Coming from a family where Christmas started on the day after Thanksgiving -- well, it took me some years to fully live into this time of 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord'. But assisted by a little 'push' from excessive December busy-ness, which made it pretty much impossible to do anything until after Advent IV, I've become a big fan.

Contrary to popular belief, the next season (Christmas!) doesn't begin 12 days before it. Nope. You don't get to the 12 drummers drumming until 11 days after The Day, making Christmas actually and not too surprisingly, the 'First day of Christmas'.

Discussion with friends who join us in this liturgical tradition sometimes involves bemoaning the fact that we don't live into the 12 days of Christmas fully and properly! Excessive, lengthy celebration is the hallmark of 'getting into the spirit'. After the long, dry wait...shouldn't we give a present on each and every day of the 12? And, as we haven't sung a single Christmas carol until Christmas Eve (or maybe Lessons & Carols if it falls late enough), shouldn't we sing our hearts out for days -- not just listening to CD's, but actually filling our lungs with air and joyfully caroling?

The true twelve days coincide with a period of time that most people think of as 'Christmas is over'. Without intentional Christmas celebration, I think we may not live beyond that and thus fall short. Any excessive ideas out there?

Advent resources:
St. Margaret Mary parish's simple, but lovely, daily advent calendar.
Finding God site's calendar -- more basic, but very thoughtful. A meditation with scripture links for each day.
BBC Radio's Bach Advent Calendar. It's all about Bach. But it has enchanting stories of his life. And the music played is appropriate for Advent.

(not) finding your true voice...

Google cracks me up. It 'reads' my gmails and supplies a list of interesting (translate: tempting) links off to the right, based on words and phrases used in an email I'm reading. Sometimes, it even eerily matches a 'concept'.

As I e-correspond with a number of friends and family who share a passion for a certain genre of music, I'm not surprised when I see 'National Cathedral Music', the Black Folder and Choral Charisma on the sidebar. But there's one in the bunch that just screams misfit: yourtruevoicestudio.com, where you are a click away from finding your talent. Hey -- apparently it's just like talking! Turn down your speakers if you click on this one. Screaming MeeMee's, GIVE ME A BREAK!!! Belting out your heart in imitation of the mass vocal cord murderers we see on the likes of American Idol has about as much to do with a beautifully floating, truly natural voice as Hershey's does to Green & Blacks. Take a cue from a group of women who can sing Javier Busto's Magnificat , complete with six incipits, and absolutely knock your socks off (I'm sure!).

Ahem. I guess yelling while singing is just not my bag.

completely undone...

A fortunate find: A custom invitation from a year ago. Hearts and talents, freely and generously given, together bring a dream to life. I am completely undone by the sweetness of all it connotes.

Art... sacred space...Anglican tradition...all united and involved...of one mind. The inscripted text inside combines all...singing sublimely, encapsulating the incarnate:

While all things were in quiet silence,
And that night was in the midst of her swift course,
Thine almighty Word leaped down from heaven
Out of thy royal throne. Alleluia.

Here, the hearts-standing-still setting by Ned Rorem.