Winter indeed has arrived on time in San Francisco, and has made its way into my life with a certain amount of gray, cold strength ... however, I like to think that this the season in which one deals with the clouds in order to be blessed to find all those silver linings.
And, with me being who I am, I have taken a long journey to my choice of Christmas carols, some of which are not carols at all.
I went and thanked Mr. Alston on both platforms on which he posted this wonderful arrangement of the Negro Spiritual "There Is a Balm in Gilead" ... I loved the soothing beauty of it, and loved singing along with the words in my head ...
"There is a Balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole;
There is a Balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.
"Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work's in vain
But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.
"There is a Balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole;
There is a Balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.
"If you can pray like Peter, if you can preach like Paul,
Then tell the world of Jesus, Who died to save us all.
"There is a Balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole;
There is a Balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.
I was told twice, early in December, that the challenge with grief is that it slows the grieving one down but the world moves right on. The contrast is especially sharp at the holidays -- we are supposed to be busy and cheery and spending a blizzard of money on everything and everyone around us in the hopes that everyone can be made happy in a materialistic world. In the U.S. that is actually the expectation all year, but especially now.
However, I have already purposefully stepped off pace, and so being even more off pace and letting most that goes with Christmastime pass me by was not a hardship ... it was simply a question of "I am become lost to the world -- ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen."
But then again ...
Quiet as is it kept, many grieve at this time, for death and loss do not care what humans have put upon the calendar and have bound themselves and would dictate to others that they must celebrate. But if you understand what is truly to be celebrated, there is no need to do anything but appreciate the meaning of Immanuel, wherever we are in life.
Lost to the hustle and bustle of the world, but not to Immanuel Himself, or to all the way that He is permitting me to celebrate that He is also the One Who said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor, and I will give you rest." I have come full circle from last year at this same time, for one night I dreamed of the choirs of Heaven singing over me those words in an arrangement I shall have to drop a third in key and become a much better composer to approximate for mortal voices (and I note that Bruckner and Elsner have come into my world as models ... so, perhaps ...).
But I have also been quite ill in this past week, and at last have figured out one third of what is new about it ... a dietary change that should be healthy needs to be adjusted to suit me ... my body is just not having that much change while grieving and dealing with a resurgence of allergies. I have made it through this by resting, the weather also agreeing with me staying indoors more.
Already I have been in the process of determining what is in my calling and so will be done day in and day out with alacrity ... what is in my responsibility has been doable, just with more rest in between.
On the walks I have been on in the process of taking care of necessary business, I have thought to myself about going slower than the world and its people is also another form of releasing control and being controlled by other people and letting them live their own lives while one lives one's own. And of course, since inviting my favorite musician here through the portal of imagination, I have had to consider that because the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past has an entire historical personality, he too would resume living a life of his own within the physics and bounds of Q-Inspired.
The lesson here is that if you actually care about someone, you need every chance you get in a society like this to practice understanding that they are a human being with a life and feelings and needs and wants of their own, and that when they choose to share their life and time with you, it must be of free choice, with no manipulation. It is necessary to do things like walking through the park and hear, through the portal of imagination, that someone is singing while walking to his work at the Music Concourse and for the moment not even thinking about you, just enjoying the joy of his own life, and to love that and leave it alone. It is necessary to actually practice not attention seeking, not demanding to be centered as the price of the other person's existence. It necessary to practice because this is contrary to how most people actually live in this consumer-mad society ... we even look on each other as chattel. One purposefully has to learn to walk differently from that.
Now, as I was thinking on all this, a real-life object lesson presented itself. ... there are still a certain number of people who simply could not endure that I was not going to fulfill their plans for the holiday (plans in their heads, not communicated with me), missed all the efforts I made to make new plans, and finally came out with stories in which they are the heroes and I am the villain for not chasing them down for the privilege of being at their beck and call.
I remember that I said aloud, "Thank You, Lord, for removing these people from my 2025!" as I blocked some folks up and returned to my rest, another great wound opened upon my heart, but the last from that direction.
My grand old soldier, two days later, called me ... he also is not feeling well, but wanted me to know, even in his difficulty ... "I love you, ALWAYS."
Quite a contrast ... and although of course of deep consolation, also the cause of some emotional whiplash ... but the only thing to do was to rest some more, right on into a quiet plan for Christmas ... and into finally fully understanding what old Admiral Morosus worked out before he relaxed and had a good nap ...
There is nothing wrong, inherently, with the music and fashions and celebrations that go into human life in the society you live in ... but if they are not for you, no matter what you try to do to connect yourself to them better, you will only hurt yourself ... so, old Morosus, thinking that he needs to solve his problems by taking a silent wife -- a woman with nothing to do but his will, without complaint -- he finally realizes that all he needs is to relax and let all that go by, appreciate the blessings all around him already that give him what he needs, and get that rest. And of course, the one bass in the world who ever could have gotten me to know about this opera and what it teaches in a picture acted it out as perfectly as he sang it. Now, I see.
Ich sehe, Herr Möll. Ich sehe. Danke schön.
All this has made for a week that is like "Selige Welt" indeed ... feeling completely adrift, not sure where this will go in 2025 ... resting while others are bustling around ... knowing that I am recovering from being ill and not trying to affect a vigor I do not feel in order to get into the spirit of the holidays ... walking through stores to get things for my family, but having no desire to buy anything for myself ... having asked for no present at all, though grateful for all gifts given to me ... having bought few gifts, but understanding that anyone who does not understand the intense giving I pour into them all year and who pitches a fit will not see my 2025 ... having bought few gifts, but having done the majority of those in support of charity efforts, and of things that can be spread around for enjoyment to many ... some into the New Year ... and thus, extending joys big and small into the cold winter ... doing my whole winter Blumenkind thing ... since some things are indeed budding in anticipation of the spring...
... I supposed I might as well, since I had to dress warmly, be part of the warmup!
But to me, "White Christmas" only gathers increasing levels of irony, not least because winter temperatures on sunny days here are only 10-15 degrees cooler on average than cool, foggy summer days ... so we don't get that much change, although some plants are indeed working on a white Christmas...
... and there is a certain starkness to the beauty as the bigger deciduous trees will not be dissuaded from their rest ...
... while other trees and plants continue in their evergreen, almost-ever-blooming-here rejoicing!
I thought then that Christmas is an interruption -- we consider that God entered humanity, and changed the course of human events for all eternity in Christ -- but it is not the type of interruption we have made of it, not a light that comes on in December and goes off by the first Monday after New Year's Day, not a cuddlefest with a cute baby surrounded by an outpouring of greed and grasping. It is not the kind of interruption for which one empties out one's bank accounts for material things and risks impoverishing one's self for the New Year if there is an emergency (as winter often poses).
To the contrary: if that Light truly shines -- if the "us" in the meaning of Immanuel -- God with us -- includes you, and you lean into that calling, your life will become an interruption to the raucous rituals of the greedy, uncaring, chattel-making world whenever you have to interact with it, or not even be noticed at all -- and one is definitely safer not being noticed at all.
The Lord Jesus was born in a stable, and laid in a manger. Other than the shepherds told by the angels, no one in Bethlehem knew He was there. The Wise Men would not arrive for years -- and when Herod the Great did find out that the King had been born, he judged the King as potentially such an interruption to his brutal reign that he committed genocide, ordering every boy child up to two years old in the region killed to try to wipe Immanuel out. He was not interested in God being with His people. He was interested in God's people still holding him as all-powerful, and willing to commit genocide to maintain control. My ancestors are the only authors of a Christmas tune that told the truth (although it was up to two years old, not six to eight days, but they were forbidden to read Matthew 3).
That's the story of Christmas that people do not want to tell. That's the part of the story that explains why my ancestors who dared to read the Christmas story for themselves could be killed by their masters who dared to play God over them. It also explains why creatives are targeted in oppressive regimes, because if we cannot be made to just produce propaganda, we will revert to first natural principles. Schubert, under the heel of Clemens von Metternich in Austria, set to music that there was der heilige Akkord coming from above ... while my ancestors sang more directly, "Over my head, I hear music in the air: there must be a God, somewhere," and that God was neither Metternich nor any of the slavers.
Herod the Great failed too, as it happens, in silencing the truth ... he was silenced in death, and Christ lived on to fulfill His mission. So too every oppressive regime, given long enough -- the fact that no mortal man shall EVER be God stands undisputed in the long run.
I reconsidered my life even to this month ... of being 43, and having one full year of peace, with people down to the end who would disturb it being removed. At last to meet Christmas in quietude -- I had been coming this way for a long time!
And then again, maybe, given that relative to most of the world, Christ also came in quietude, there being no room in the inn in busy Bethlehem, maybe this is where I had to come. After all ... "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht" is a much deeper carol, and twice as long, as the tamed "Silent Night" a slavery-loving preacher made, scared that Mohr and Gruber had a curly-haired Christ in the original, and was terrified that a Christ with "lockigen Haar" might do something for Africans whose hair "locks" (spoiler alert: on April 9, 1865, Confederate general Robert E. Lee cited his Christian faith as one of the reasons for his surrender -- so YES, Christ DID come through!).
Original lyrics -- go to the bottom for the REAL English translation
When you can read German, you realize what literally is "silenced" in Silent Night ... as if again some of Herod the Great's heirs do not want the world to know ... verse 4 ... today to all is made the Father's love and Christ as brother offered to all the people of the world ... verse 5 ... that protection in Christ is offered to all the people of the world ... and even lighter touches ... verse 2 ... not an angry Christ like the raging tyrants of the world, but a baby laughing, and from His mouth coming the love of the Father to the ears of the whole world. One has to be quiet to hear the laugh of a baby ... so again, stille Nacht, heilige Nacht.
Mohr was the peer of Schubert in Austria ... he also quietly defied the blasphemous vision put forth by Austria's rulers in church and state of Christ in their image and as their tool, and agreed with Scripture about Immanuel. He did so well that rulers of church and state here in the U.S., following the same blasphemous vision, suppressed the truth until Facebook and Google came along ... and now, Hive and the blockchain have the news, too, because I am here, quietly putting up the evidence, and pointing back to the truth...
... and that is enough to do. It is too much to do to jump through artificial hurdles. I have given myself a rest from that this year, a rest that I needed, a rest I intend to stay in when not struggling where the struggle must be.
Now, I have checked ... of course ... natürlich ... but, true to form, YouTube does not have a recording of a certain basso profondo singing Austria's most famous Christmas hymn ... that seems to fall into that class of things, like true love songs in the family of German lied, that Kurt Möll just held back for those nearest and dearest to him. When you do not feel the need to chase every single opportunity to be in the spotlight, you actually can have a life completely separate from the demands of the world, full of blessings for those called with you that are for them -- common grace (publicly available) differing from special grace (for the called only) pops up again here.
One does not have to sell one's whole self to the world in order to live -- that is another lesson even to be found there. One does not have to put ability to everywhere a piece of money is flashed, and one may preserve one's ability for those things of a higher value than can be paid for. One may leave what one wishes as one's own legacy. My Finnish beloved bass, Martti Talvela, only left as his personal recordings a set of Finnish hymns with organ. Plenty of other people showed up with more, and of course his professional recordings are out there, but had the Internet never been invented, his statement about his legacy would have stood out quite starkly.
My beloved American basses, Paul Robeson and Jerome Hines, also set themselves apart --- Mr. Robeson decided he was going to use his voice to honor the Negro Spiritual, and later on added protest songs that fit in. Mr. Hines decided he wanted to sing the story of the Savior he loved, and, not being satisfied with what was available, went and wrote his own opera -- I am the Way -- and went on about his business.
In my own life, my first church music teacher recorded her first album at 86 years old, and still had her high A flat and B flat. She was a spinto soprano to the end, having preserved her voice for the Lord for seven decades.
All of these people, my mentors in life and in study, were quiet in many ways to the expectations and demands of the world, so they might give their voice, and strength, to that which they were called.
So, I am not adrift, just un-moored from much of the world. The stillness and holiness does reflect Immanuel's presence, for He came out of the view of the world, and remained out of it, holding down his stepfather Joseph's job as a carpenter, until age 30, and came out on time for His greater mission. He was tempted -- literally by the devil -- to use his powers to make stones into bread, to display himself in the temple, and to seek the headship of the world by bowing to the devil. Our temptations today are not much different, for people seek creature comforts at others' expense, seek to be admired and adored at all costs, and are willing to sell their soul out to just be over the top of someone else in riches, power, and status.
The Lord quietly refused, using Scripture, and went on about His redeeming business. Since He is God with us, I presume that I, following Him, am permitted to do the same ... and in fact, having studied, I know I am commanded to do the same.
So, to a Christmas in quietude I have come, and thus to begin a New Year of peace. I am not adrift, after all.
And speaking of basses with soft spots for their students ... about here, the portal of imagination re-opened ...
"Frau Mathews, you know me all too well now ... although there is no need for me today ... you have surely done your own version of a lessons and carols."
"Now, see here, Admiral Morosus ... ."
The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, having sung that role at age 34, laughed.
"How quickly I forget!" he said.
"You forget that you are still wanted, even if not as needed as you were three years ago because I am getting to where you sang to me that I might be," I said as I embraced him. "I know Christmas is three days long for Germans -- so, wieder, Frohe Weihnacten!"
"And so, again, Merry Christmas to you, mein goldenes Blumenkind," he purred as he wrapped his arms around me. "Because still wanted, I do have a way to round off your lesson for the day. Tell me this. What did you desire for yourself this Christmas that could be purchased?"
"The things I desired could not have been purchased. The Lord continues to allow people who should not be in my life to exit before 2025, my family is well enough to enjoy the holidays, my students are doing marvelously, and I have everything I need. Of course I might have desired all those German treats, and of course there are plenty of holiday sweets of all backgrounds that I might have indulged in ... but I have been ill, and abundant sweets are not the best for that situation. As for things, I have too many, and was even given too many -- some I shall have to re-gift. As for money, one can always have more, but even that is not at issue, because I am the author of this --."
"-- and, having been shown the cycles of the crypto market and investing accordingly, and having been faithful here on Hive, and having put forth the book and course, I merely need to be a good steward of all opportunity at hand, at the proper times in 2025."
"So ... you have everything?"
"In a sense, yes ... everything I need and most deeply want is meeting me in the way in which I am walking. As a human being I can always want more, but in choosing to be content with what I have, and even gratefully acknowledging the overflow, I do find myself plenty full -- plentiful."
He smiled, and considered what he was about to say next for a long moment.
"Although I am not going to sing 'Der Leiermann' from Winterreise again today -- not exactly the song for a festive mood -- there is one thing I will point out from it. The hurdy-gurdy man is being ignored in the world around him, yet he stays with his little tune -- he does what he feels he must no matter what the world thinks about it."
"Yes, he does," I said.
"We would admire him, except we know he is failing, and dying, and shall soon make a meal for those wild dogs already growling and snapping at him -- he is half-frozen already, and his plate for coins is entirely empty. What he needs to do is cease from his own labors, and cry out for help, and be humble enough to be taken in by whoever answers, for it could not be in Austria of that time, the time of Mohr and Gruber and their 'Stille Nacht' as much as it was the time of Schubert and Winterreise, that some person knowing their call from the One Who offers love, salvation, brotherhood, and protection to the whole world would not have heard that strange old man and had mercy."
"Somebody would have been 'winterreised,' to recall my thought from last year at this time," I said, and delighted in my companion's basso laughter about that.
"You have had a year of adventures since then -- we shall revisit that lesson and some others, to see what you have found out!" he said. "But go on!"
"Someone would have braved the cold and those dogs," I said, "someone truly believing in and calling on Immanuel -- to be with that man and show him the love of God."
"But you see, Müller and Schubert conceive of the world without any concept of what Mohr and Gruber know, and so, all the hurdy-gurdy man gets for an admirer is another dying, half-frozen man, the crow that shall pick his eyes out following him, and him desiring only to use the hurdy-gurdy man to accompany his songs -- and we know what the character in Winterreise has been singing about. He blasphemes in the opening song, charging God Himself with inconstancy, all the way to song 23, for there, when an accord of three suns are presented him in the sky for warmth and light, he wishes for all of them to go out, because they are not his. All he wants, in song 24, after all that, is to co-opt his fellow dying man to play his hurdy-gurdy under his songs."
"Yikes," I said, and shivered. "Winterreise is a collection of anti-Christmas carols, in a way -- and because there are still a few autumn leaves on the trees, it cannot actually be that far from Christmas in which the events take place, given how much colder Austria is than San Francisco!"
"While you are shivering, consider this. I suspect the poet Müller knew Scripture in a way that would compare on the surface with your knowledge, and he would have heard Handel's "Messiah" by then also. That first line in the 'Hallelujah' Chorus -- 'Hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth' -- is that not a direct quote from the King James Bible?"
"It is, from Revelation 19."
"What happens directly after that, to all the people that want to have their own reign and toot their own horn and are willing to wipe out the people of God to remain deified and enthroned in the earth -- what happens when they make their attack in defiance of that hallelujah?"
I don't have much of a vertical leap, but it was enough to get my head up over my companion's head, a foot higher than mine, because ... well, let's just say that the analogs in Revelation 19 to the crow following the character in Winterreise are just as assured of their holiday meal! Christ(mas) vs. anti-Christ(mas), seen at the ultimate scale!
But of course, walking in the way of grace one is called in comes with certain advantages, such as having an ethereal basso profondo catch me so I could not fall to the cold ground!
"Not on my watch -- nicht auf meiner Uhr."
It took me quite some time to get settled back down, and he looked at me with concern after that.
"It is enough -- genug," he said. "I must get you home, mein geliebtes Blumenkind, for although it is only ten degrees cooler today than the average summer temperature here, you are not yet perfectly well, and what warmth there is shall swiftly flee. You have the point already -- be content that you know what Mohr and Gruber know, and continue to walk, adorn, abide, appear, and above all things, find your contentment in the way in which you are called, being magnificently provided for in going.
"And, speaking of magnificent provision ... of all the presents you could have given me, developing me as what in the literary world is called a round character, capable of learning, growth, and development based on my historical known character, is the best gift of love you could have given me in 2024! Du hast meine ewige Dankbarkeit! You have my eternal gratitude ... and so, as regards 'Stille Nacht' ... while not showing you anything it is not your business to know ... close your eyes, Frau Mathews, while I do my best imitation of the Ghost of Christmas Past."
I closed my eyes ... and my nose was suddenly delighted with the smell of pine and a wood fire ... some tenor in the street outside at a distance was singing 'O Tannenbaum' in flawless German, so I knew I was in Germany past ... but not that far past ... some young person was talking about putting up greetings on 'Das Facebook' and wishing for something better (obviously, before Hive came into existence) ... and the smell of good German food was permeating the room. People were happy ... there was much laughing and joy.
But then, all at once, a heavy step entered the room, and then a chair creaked -- someone quite large was getting old, and had come down in that chair a bit hard -- but he laughed at himself and cracked a gentle joke about it so everyone could laugh with him! I knew that voice, and laughed along with the rest!
After that, everything was silent for a moment until all at once, all the people began to sing ... from the very young to the middle years to the very old ... that was a big set of family and friends ...
"Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht ... ."
They sang through all six verses in quite good family-and-friends harmony ... there was no danger of them wandering out of key because softly but definitively, the great laughing voice was now singing bass and therefore keeping the key on track from the foundation of the harmony, singing what was originally written until that sixth and last verse, and that last note ... from F2 down to that awesome B flat 1 to close. If I did not know already, I would have known then who that was, humbly passing on the opportunity to lead the song as soloist, and yet, because utterly in control of the pace and key, nonetheless gently leading his family circle successfully through the carol and enjoying a nice low note at the end where it fit best.
"Of all the beautiful German holiday treats you might have brought me," I said as we were again passing through time, "there could have been none sweeter than that. Danke schön."
"I am not quite finished, Frau Mathews ... you may open your eyes now."
I did and was dazzled ... it seemed that every ounce of silver light in the day had gathered in his hair and was beaming out of his eyes and smile upon me -- and the bell at University of San Francisco, atop Lone Mountain, decided to be a silver bell for Christmas and started ringing!
"No, Frau Mathews, I do not do magic or alchemy, but my stage timing is still pretty good."
That joke was still good a year on, and I laughed just as hard as in the previous winter!
"You just could not end the year without having me rolling laughing one time!" I said.
*"Natürlich," he purred, and had me laughing even more.
"Bitte schön, mein goldenes Blumenkind," he said at last. "Yet again on December 26th, and still, und stille und heilige -- Frohe Weihnachten, Frau Mathews."
