Once again I share a Chesterton poem for Christmas. Unfortunately, this year it’s the same poem as last year. This is because of something I learned last night.

I have DVDs of three of the movie versions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. I have the Sim version (of course), the George C. Scott version, and the musical “Scrooge” with Albert Finney (a little silly, but that’s the function of musicals). It’s my practice to view all three during the Christmas season.

Last night I watched the Scott version, and because it’s relatively faithful to the text, I followed along with my copy of The Annotated Christmas Carol, edited by Michael Patrick Hearn. In Stave Three, there’s a passage that goes, “All this time the chesnuts (sic) and the jug went round and round; and by and bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim….” Hearn says in a footnote here, “Apparently Dickens had no specific carol in mind; no such song has been found in Sandys’ or any other collection. G. K. Chesterton apparently realized this omission; in his Poems (1926) he included a verse, ‘A Child of the Snows,’ which might stand for Tiny Tim’s song until another might be found.”



It goes like this:

A Child of the Snows

There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,

And never before or again,

When the nights are strong with a darkness long,

And the dark is alive with rain.

Never we know but in sleet and in snow,

The place where the great fires are,

That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth

And the heart of the earth a star.

And at night we win to the ancient inn

Where the child in the frost is furled,

We follow the feet where all souls meet

At the inn at the end of the world.

The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red,

For the flame of the sun is flown,

The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold,

And a Child comes forth alone.



Merry Christmas. Glade Jul.

Tomorrow, I guess, is the Winter Solstice. There was some discussion on the subject on Dennis Prager’s show today, and the conclusion seemed to be that the solstice came on the 21st last year, but will be on the 22nd this year. Sounds fishy to me. I suspect it’s a plot by the Global Warming conspiracists, intended to give them an excuse to release fiery press releases tomorrow, condemning the Bush administration for delaying the rotation of the earth for the benefit of Haliburton.

I’ve always been happy that we have a holiday featuring lots of colored lights at this particular time of the year. I go to work in the dark, and come home in the dark. I need colored lights. I’m confident any competent health professional would agree.

Incidentally, this is St. Thomas’ Day, the anniversary of the killing of Erling Skjalgsson, hero of my novel, The Year of the Warrior. It was a dark day when Erling died, not least for St. Olaf Haraldsson, who had some culpability in his death. But that’s a story for another novel, which (alas) will probably never be written.

The days are even shorter in Norway than here in Minnesota, this time of year. The Norwegians used to think of Jul (Christmas) as an old woman who came to visit now. Today she took a seat in the chimney corner. Tomorrow and the day after she would sit in two other kitchen corners. Christmas Eve she got the “high seat,” the best seat in the house, where she would be the guest of honor all the way to Epiphany. It was believed that there was no point doing any work today. If baking was done, the dough would rise wrong. In the oven, the cakes or cookies would move around, and you’d never get them out again. So give Mom a break.

At the precise moment when the sun “turned” (it was believed), the horns of the cows would loosen—but just for that moment. Also at that moment, all water turned to wine, then to poison, and then back to water again.

You’ve been warned.

The concert of Sissel and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is scheduled for tonight on my PBS station. Be on the watch for it in your own market.

I’m feeling better, thanks for asking. Not actually well, but I’m slogging back up the trail to my normal level of health, which (come to think of it) isn’t that high a climb.

Today was the last day for classes at the Bible School and Seminary. Students were stressed over their final tests and excited about going home for the holidays. We also had a farewell for my African assistant, who’s going home now. No doubt he’ll be relieved to give up working for me in exchange for going back to being the bishop of an entire diocese in his home country.

The more I think about that, the more bizarre it appears. Sometimes it’s necessary for God to teach His children humility, but using me as the instrument seems excessive.

All things considered, today was an improvement. I feel marginally better than yesterday. The Cold From… well, I’ll say Sniffleheim, which is a pun on the name of a bad place in Norse mythology that you probably wouldn’t recognize, seems to be retreating at last. And I stopped at a body shop after work to get an estimate on my bumper. They offered to let one of the technicians reattach it with a couple screws as a “side job,” and I got away for twenty bucks, which the girl who did the damage has promised to send me.

Ed Veith, over at Cranach, makes the sad announcement that the Luther At the Movies blog has been put to bed forever. However, Dr. Luther’s “miserable, execrable assistant,” Anthony Sacramone, has joined the blogging stable at First Things, so that’s some consolation.

He does a gorgeous takedown of The Golden Compass here.

America waits in hushed anticipation, one question on its trembling lips: “Does Walker feel better?”

Walker replies (in an impressive, deep voice), “I’m not actually sure.”

Saturday I woke up hopefully (I always feel sort of fair when I first get up), thinking “I can probably manage going to church to set up today…” (as I’ve mentioned, my church meets in a gymnasium, and my team is called on to set up the stage and chairs once every five weeks) “…and then do some Christmas shopping, and get a couple things at the grocery store.”

After an hour or two (spent mostly on the couch) I thought, “I’ll have to call in AWOL on the set-up, but I can probably do some shopping and go to the grocery store. I don’t have much left to buy.”

A couple hours later I said, “I guess I can still get some groceries. That’s not far to drive.”

And then I gave up on the groceries too.

Sunday I spent reading books, in a prone position.

Today I went in to work, and put in my time. I was not a human dynamo, but I was there and I did what a man’s gotta do.

I’m still coughing, though, and still don’t have much of a voice. If it doesn’t clear up soon I suppose I’ll have to see the doctor and inquire delicately about bronchitis.

I stopped at the drug store tonight, and while I was inside a young woman clipped the corner of Mrs. Hermanson, my Tracker, and tore her front bumper off. She had me paged in the store, and gave me her name and phone number (the young woman, that is. Not Mrs. Hermanson). She said she was driving her father’s car, and didn’t have any ID or insurance information on her. She wants to handle it outside insurance.

I’m not delighted about this, and I figure there’s a good chance she’ll just change her phone number once I give her the estimate, but I don’t know what else I could do under the circumstances.

Then again, I suppose if she were out to rip me off, she could have just driven away.



For Pete’s sake, girl, if you wanted to give me your phone number, you could have just introduced yourself!

How long do you think it’ll be before some expert announces that the smell of fresh-cut pine boughs causes cancer?

Yeah, I’m feeling a little better. Compared to the last couple days. Compared to waterboarding. Compared to sitting through a re-run of Family Affair. I put in another full day at work, but I have all the energy and zest for life of… well, of a middle-aged, depressive Norwegian. Normal, in other words. Normal with a deep desire for sleep, a bad cough, and a voice south of James Earl Jones’.

I like the deep voice. One of the many dreams life has denied me, like the dream of being six feet tall, was the dream of singing bass. I got as far down as baritone, but people usually assume I’m a tenor. I don’t want to be thought of as a tenor. I want to be thought of as a bass—a sea-bottom bass with an extra Y chromosome.

The pleasure is reduced by the fact that only about half of my words actually get out. I alternate between no voice of all and a bass rumble: “(Croak) name is (croak) Walker.”



Now I shall crawl away to the sofa.