We are singing this traditional carol in our Christmas concert this month:

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day;

I would my true love did so chance

To see the legend of my play,

To call my true love to my dance;

Chorus

Sing, oh! my love, oh! my love, my love, my love,

This have I done for my true love

Then was I born of a virgin pure,

Of her I took fleshly substance

Thus was I knit to man’s nature

To call my true love to my dance. Chorus

In a manger laid, and wrapped I was

So very poor, this was my chance

Betwixt an ox and a silly poor ass

To call my true love to my dance. Chorus

‘Tis the gift to be simple,

‘Tis the gift to be free,

‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

It will be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,

to bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed

To turn, turn, will be our delight,

‘Til by turning, turning, we come round right.

More information

from the Academy of American Poets, At the Common Table: Poems for Thanksgiving.

Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,

The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,

And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,

With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,

Like that which o’er Nineveh’s prophet once grew,

While he waited to know that his warning was true,

from “The Pumpkin” by John Greenleaf Whittier

THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it

Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?

Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,—

Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,

Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?

Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!

Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October

Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o’er the ocean.

Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré.

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,

Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman’s devotion,

List to the mournful tradition, still sung by the pines of the forest;

List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

from Longfellow’s beautiful, sad poem, “Evangeline.”

I can’t help of think of words like this when I walk in the Great Smokey Mountains or even some of the beautiful trails around Lookout and Signal Mountains. They have captured my imagination, which is an important point to remember when buying Christmas presents for your children.

What we read, do, and play with as children form our imagination, developing our ideas of ourselves and the world: heros and who they are, villans and why they do what they do, how we define “happily ever after.” Do our little girls believe they are beautiful just as they are? Do our little boys believe they capable of anything God wants them to do? Our Christmas celebrations help them understand these things.

I love this hymn, written by a Quaker teacher in 1906, sung to a traditional English tune called “Kingsfold.”

I feel the winds of God today; today my sail I lift,

Though heavy, oft with drenching spray, and torn with many a rift;

If hope but light the water’s crest, and Christ my bark will use,

I’ll seek the seas at His behest, and brave another cruise.

It is the wind of God that dries my vain regretful tears,

Until with braver thoughts shall rise the purer, brighter years;

If cast on shores of selfish ease or pleasure I should be;

Lord, let me feel Thy freshening breeze, and I’ll put back to sea.

If ever I forget Thy love and how that love was shown,

Lift high the blood red flag above; it bears Thy Name alone.

Great Pilot of my onward way, Thou wilt not let me drift;

I feel the winds of God today, today my sail I lift.

The choir in my church was to sing an arrangement of this song today, and I could have joined them if I wasn’t with my sweet wife having another little girl. We had prayed for an easy delivery of our fourth daughter, and we received it. Thank the Lord. The next day after we returned home, my wife felt a hardening in her leg with some pain when she drew back her toes–a potential blood clot in the leg most afflicted with varicose veins during pregnancy. We called her midwife and obeyed the summons to the emergency room downtown. A five-hour wait to be admitted to a labor room upstairs for another uncomfortable night on a hospital bed for my good, good wife who only wanted to recoup her strength from carrying and delivering the baby.

But I am able to write you tonight because we have returned home. Thank the Lord. The symptoms in her leg were not a serious blood clot, though maybe asuperficial one treatable with heat and aspirin. We can rest at home without blood thinners and monitoring. The Lord saw us through the drenching spray of a rough sea, and will continue his faithfulness as we raise our daughters I have no doubt. Now, to bed.

playing hide and seek

among trees with yellow leaves

children with gold hats

by Sondra Ball

More

What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!—

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

Read the rest of this by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Today Gene Edward Veith at Cranach blogged on the point (which I’ve brought up myself here) that in our society today all crimes, however vile, are considered preferable to hypocrisy. In theory the modern American thinks that a man who struggles in the privacy of his soul with a besetting sin like drunkenness is a hypocrite, and therefore far more to be condemned than a mass murderer, providing the mass murderer commits his crime in public, before the eyes of all.

In my comment I referenced a poem of Ogden Nash’s, which seemed to me prophetic. I’ll post the poem here. This version comes from the collection Verses From 1929 On, published by Modern Library.

THE STRANGE CASE OF THE IRKSOME PRUDE

Once upon a time there was a young man named Harold Scrutiny.

*

Harold had many virtues and practically no vices.

*

He smoked, to be sure.

*

Also he drank and swore.

*

Moreover, he was a pickpocket.

*

But, for all that, Harold was no prude.

*

I am no prude, Harold often said.

*

But Detective Guilfoyle of the Pickpocket Squad is a prude, the old prude, said Harold.

*

One day Harold went into the subway to pick some pockets.

*

There was a man on the platform penciling a beard on the lady on the toothpaste placard.

*

Hey, said Harold.

*

Hey who, said the man.

*

Hey you, that’s hey who, said Harold.

*

Aren’t you going to give her a moustache?

*

Sure I’m going to give her a moustache, said the man.

*

What do you think I am?

*

I think you’re somebody that puts beards on ladies on toothpaste placards before they put on the moustache, said Harold.

*

Don’t you know enough to put the moustache on first?

*

You put the moustache on first, why then you can turn it up or turn it down, whichever you want, said Harold.

*

You try to turn a moustache down after the beard’s on, it runs into the beard, said Harold.

*

It don’t look like a moustache, only like a beard grows up and down both.

*

Go on, said the man, go on and pick some pockets.

*

Harold turned to his work, but his mind was elsewhere.

*

Suddenly the lady on the toothpaste placard got off the toothpaste placard and arrested him.

*

It was Detective Guilfoyle of the Pickpocket Squad all the time.

*

You got a beard grows up and down both, said Harold.

*

Detective Guilfoyle searched Harold.

*

He certainly was surprised at what he found.

*

So was Harold.

*

Harold hadn’t picked any pockets at all because his mind was elsewhere.

*

He had picked a peck of pickled peppers.

*

Detective Guilfoyle wanted to call Harold a name, but he couldn’t because he was a prude.

*

Harold picked his pocket and later became the smokingest swearingest, drinkingest Assistant District Attorney the county ever had.

*

Don’t be a prude.

I’ve been researching the history of my organization, CBMC (I’m a designer at the national service center). We put out a magazine for decades called CBMC Contact, and I found this poem on the back cover of a 1952 issue. It’s cute, and cute things should be blogged (within certain strict guidelines).

The Typographical Error

The typographical error is a slippery thing and sly;

You can hunt til you are dizzy, but it somehow will get by.

Til the forms are off the presses, it is strange how still it keeps;

It shrinks down in a corner and it never stirs or peeps.

That typographical error, too small for human eyes,

Til the ink is on the paper, when it grows to mountain size.

The boss, he stares with horror, then he grabs his hair and groans;

The copyreader drop his head upon his hands and moans–

The remainder of the issue may be clean as clean can be,

But the typographical error is the only thing you see.

W.C. Winslow

I put these words to a 15th Century hymn tune, which is often sung as “Sing We Now of Christmas.” You can listen to a good midi version through that link. I also found part of it sampled from this choral album. It has that beautifully ancient quality I admire in many hymns.

Our Salvation

Glory to our God who reigns over everything.

He rebuilds our hearts to give us mind to sing

Of Him, the I Am

Our hope in heaven’s Lamb,

His redemptive choice, and eternal blessing.

The Lord gives His blessing to all who receive

By the mouth confessing, by the heart believe

That Jesus is Lord

And from the grave restored,

That all who come believing may His life receive.

To Love’s gracious call we could not answer then;

For as Adam’s children, we were dead in sin.

But Jesus, our Lord,

Had chosen us before

He set the planets spinning in the solar wind.