Thank God for Ear Worms

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Some people sing in the shower. I confess that I sing in the car.

When I sing along with the car radio, my son Tim likes to ask me, “Who sings this song?”

“Bob Dylan,” I answer.

“Let’s keep it that way,” responds Tim.

I laugh and, much to his chagrin, I keep on singing.

Even worse for my children is when my wife and I both sing along to songs we love from the 70s. We know every word of every AM radio hit of that decadent decade. Queen, Frampton, Bee Gees, the Spinners, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, and Springsteen; we know every word, chord change, tempo change, and grunt. Never did we study or even glance at the lyrics. Yet we know every word.

This is the power of music. It is the same reason that School House Rock engraved the Preamble of the Constitution in my memory forever. Music is the greatest teaching device ever gifted to us by God. At church, our hymns serve to praise God and they also serve to form us, imprint in us the story of God’s love and grace. Hymns are marvelous delivery devices for knowledge of God, that, if we are lucky, stick with us through every stage of life.

Church attendance for my children was non-negotiable for just this reason. My wife and I wanted them to stew in the rich broth of hymnody and prayer so it would be there when they need it. More about God was communicated to them by hymn singing and choir anthems than any argument or testimony we had at home.

Our work with our children is to expose them to what we know is good food so they develop a taste for it that outlasts their love of mac and cheese. Baptism is the first step in the pickling process, where the new life of grace infuses their lives, and ours, transforming us from cucumber to pickle across a lifetime of growth. Be sure to immerse yourself and your family in regular baths of great hymnody and prayer so we will all be able to sing along with the angels and archangels when the time comes.

Blessings,

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Rector

Check out these opportunities this Advent season to immerse yourself and your family in song. Don't forget to share them with your friends, too!

Carol Sing - 9:15 a.m. Sunday, December 16

Messiah Sing Along - 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, December 19

Read Erik Meyer's blog about Advent Hymns here

Christmas Worship - visit StMartinEC.org/christmas for the full schedule

Staff Picks for Giving Back this Christmas

It's nearly Christmas and you haven't finished your gift-giving purchases? That's okay, neither have we. With less than a week to go, we thought we'd offer you some ideas for those hard-to-buy for people, or for how you can spend your money in a way that cuts against our consumer culture.

Here are some staff picks for ways to give AND give back this Christmas time.

Jarrett

This year St. Martin's Christmas plate offering will be going to Imara International, a safe house that also provides education for teen mothers and their babies in Kenya. This organization was founded by an Episcopalian and our own Barbara Dundon visited this past year to record some of their stories. Jarrett looks forward to visiting himself in 2015. 

Jarrett also encourages support of St. James School right here in Philadelphia. St. James School is a faith-based Philadelphia middle school in the Episcopal tradition, committed to educating traditionally underresourced students in a nurturing environment. The school is a community that provides a challenging academic program and encourages the development of the moral, spiritual, intellectual, physical and creative gifts in its students. Our own Erik Meyer continues to assist with music there at Eucharist on Wednesday afternoons.

Callie

Alternative Gift-Giving Ideas:

Episcopal Relief & Development (800.334.7626 x5129): purchase Bishops Blend Fair Trade Coffee and Tea; donate a gift of global aid in someone’s name.

Heifer International (800.422.0474): donate an animal in someone’s name; this animal will go to a family in need to help them be self-sufficient.

Kiva (415.358.7512): make microloans to small business owners worldwide; you select which entrepreneur to support and get your money back to keep or reinvest.

Thistle Farms (615.298.1140): natural bath and body products made by women in Nashville’s Magdalene community, a 2-year residential community for women with a history of prostitution and drug addiction (founded by an Episcopal priest!)

SERRV (800.422.5915): organization working to eradicate poverty through direct connections with low-income artisans and farmers; sells crafts and foods

Global Girlfriend (888.355.4321): fairly-traded apparel and accessories hand-made by women and communities in need around the world

Global Exchange (415.255.7296): offers a wide range of socially conscious gifts from around the world

Ways to Serve & Provide Warmth this Christmas:

The Greater Philadelphia Cares Winter Coat Drive - bring new or “gently used” winter coats to: Philadelphia Federal Credit Union at 6707 Germantown Avenue or Trolley Car Diner at 7619 Germantown Avenue (for other drop-off locations, call 215.564.4544 or visit )

Holiday Food Drives - taking place around the city (contact Philabundance for more information).

Barbara

I bought socks this year from Mitscoots which will donate a pair of socks to the homeless for every pair you buy.

Also I ordered some paper products from the Peoples Paper Coop in Germantown which provides legal assistance for ex-offenders to get their criminal records expunged, then turns their paperwork into beautiful hand-made paper.

Perennial favorites: Heifer International, Serrv International, 10,000 Villages.

Another practice is to make some time to shop locally, rather than ordering everything on-line or from big box stores. Go to 10,000 Villages on Germantown, and patronize other local shops on the avenue. Looking for books? Order them through a local book store such as Big Blue Marble, rather than Amazon. Buy art and food from local artisans near work or home. Gift people with tickets to local theater productions and patronize local musicians.

Natalee

For my five year old, Liam, this year we'll be donating to World Wildlife Fund Adopt a Tiger. It comes with a plush tiger, a photo of a tiger, and an adoption certificate. The plush and photo help make it real for a little kid. If you're buying for an adult you may want to skip the gift-with-donation and make every dollar go towards conservation. Other animals are available to support.

My husband Nate wanted to help support small business owners around the world through micro funding or providing something necessary to help start a business. Heifer International Honeybees or a Kiva gift card for microfinancing are just the right thing.

We'll also be making a donation to help build a pediatric unit at the Mpassa Medical Unit in the Congo. This is an effort being supported by the Southeast District of the Eastern PA Conference of the United Methodist Church - my denomination. I'll be making a donation here in honor of my new baby boy, Ezra.

Another favorite is Appalachia Service Project, a home repair ministry in central Appalachia which Nate and I led youth on for years and holds a special place in our hearts.

Connie

This year the Haggards will give to Beyond Borders and Partners in Health, both vital organizations in Haiti, and to DEC in honor of Chris' 19 years at that wonderful workshop where everyone, no matter what disability, is family.

Betsy

This Christmas the Wolfords are contributing to our local SPCA and we're purchasing a bike through Compassion International to enable a child in a third world country to ride to school, etc. And as all of you've heard me drone on & on about MS bike rides, the National MS Society is an organization I'm regularly rooting for.

Merry Christmas and Happy (Alternative) Giving this season!

The Advent Power of the Christmas Tree

We decorated the Christmas tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving this year.

“It seems too early,” my husband complained.

“Christmas decorations are up everywhere else, and we’re behind, ” my 14-year-old countered.

“This is the only day that the whole family will be here until Christmas,” I said, as I realized that in a few hours my son would be heading back to college after his brief Thanksgiving break. “It’s going up today.”

Settled.

I don’t know how others decorate their Christmas trees. We are great collectors of ornaments, both humble and grand. Nearly each one prompts a story that is retold every year, with titles like “The Origin of the Enormous Fake Dragonflies” or “Why We Won’t Toss the ‘Sputnik’ Ornaments Dad Made in Third Grade”.

My son and daughter aren’t little any more. They space the ornaments nicely instead of clumping them all in one place, a foot from the bottom branches. Every year their questions are more sophisticated, and they hear the stories in new ways. And so do I.

Don’t tell my kids, but putting up the Christmas tree is a rich, spiritual, and deeply powerful Advent ritual in my family. We connect ourselves to a long, complex narrative that blends family story and esoteric symbol; we construct a place where past meets future. As we navigate this overcrowded tree, we reluctantly separate out some things that are too damaged to keep or that have lost their meaning. And we keep some things for inexplicable reasons best called “mystery”. For example, the beakless, blue chicken made the cut again this year. “I like it, don’t throw it out,” someone declares. And it stays.

The lights go on, and we thrill at it. Over the next four weeks this tree will draw me. I will play with the arrangement, regularly moving ornaments around to fill empty spaces. I will sit in a tree-lit room and contemplate. I will remember. I will think ahead.

To be sure, our family has other rituals that are more specific to this pre-Christmas season. Each night we put symbols on a little Jesse tree -- origami decorations that tell the story of Salvation History and count down the days till the Christ arrives. On Sundays we light our Advent wreath and sing O Come O Come Emmanuel.

But the Christmas Tree itself does the holiday on its own terms. With its pagan past and decorations that are more reminiscent of family vacations than of the Holy Family, my tree doesn’t exactly foretell a baby born in a manger stall. In its glorious ambiguity it layers the many narratives of this time of year. It makes room for all of it in its bendy, manufactured branches. And each year there is still space for more.

In his book, The Legend of the Bells and other Tales, John Shea retells a Cherokee story, “Why Some Trees are Evergreen.” After the Great Mystery makes the plants and trees, he wants to give a gift to each according to its ability. So he set up a test, challenging them to stay awake and keep watch over the whole earth for a week. Most of the trees nod off by day three, but the cedar, pine, spruce, and fir and their kin are still vigilant when the Great Mystery returns at week’s end. Their reward is to remain green forever, so that even in the deadness of winter, animals could find warmth and sustenance in their branches.

Tell stories. Ask questions of the symbols. Hold the past in your hands. Find time. Make room. Stay awake until the Great Mystery returns. These are the subtle, Advent invitations of the Christmas tree. I’m not sure I’d be ready for Christmas Day without them.

- Barb Ballenger

Your turn! What stories does your Christmas tree tell? Let us know in the comments.

A St. Nicholas Blessing

St. Nicholas Day is December 6th.

St. Nicholas is a resplendent visitor at St. Martin's. I am certain we have the best St. Nicholas in the diocese. His appearance reminded me of an Advent prayer by an author I really like – Edward Hays. I would like to share it with you. It is from his book, Prayers for the Domestic Church.

St. Nicholas Blessing Prayer

St. Nicholas, holy patron of children,

                  Bishop of the East,

                  we invite you to come among us

                  and to grant us your holy blessing.

Help us in this busy, busy season

                  not to miss the miracle of the coming of Emmanuel

                  in the days of preparation

                  as well as on the feast itself.

Help us not to be blind

                  to the gifts of getting ready.

Protect us from insincerity.

May every greeting we send

                  be signed with love, friendship and prayer.

May our greetings, so written,

                  be fun to open and treasures to keep.

Kind St. Nicholas,

                  protect us from shoppers fatigue.

Show us how to take delight in the marketplace,

                  now transformed in beauty, lights and music.

Save us all from anxiety over what to give

                  so that we may concentrate on how to give.

Stand by the stepladder

                  as we decorate our homes and trees and lives.

May our decorations not be mute

                  but rather singing symbols,

                  sacred signs of the evergreen coming of the Lord of Life.

Help us to remember that mistletoe, holly

                  and all other ornaments of the season,

On Sunday, December 8th St. Nicholas visited Church School. 

                  were sacred signs to ancient believers.

But, most of all, jolly saint of toys and sweets,

                  help us stay youthful, humorous, playful and dream-filled

                  as we prepare together for the coming of Christ

                  with Advent longing.

St. Nicholas, pray for us.

Amen

- The Rev. Carol Duncan

“… Not in that poor lowly stable …”

“Christmas is coming, the goose (gander?) is getting fat …” It is an interesting time of year.  Without going into details, December always feels two-faced to me – an ideal image of warm sentimentality and good-will juxtaposed against a more realistic frenzy of greed, being overcommitted, and exhaustion.  I’m sure everyone deals with these or similar emotions; but this season takes a unique toll on musicians (and especially church musicians).

While I’m fond of our Christmas hymns, I often have difficulty enjoying them, because in my mind they’ve become associated with stress, panic, and quite frankly, fear (fear of playing something wrong, omitting that special carol and therefore ruining someone’s holiday, or not playing it “the way it’s supposed to be played”.)  Eventually, we musicians build up defenses to help deflect the stress and keep our sanity.  This can take the form of alternate words to carols, hilarious Facebook posts about playing “The Nutcracker” 19 times in 12 days, or being able to play Handel’s “Messiah” in retrograde inversion.  (I can completely play Bach’s “Wachet auf” with the right hand starting one eighth-beat behind.  In college I would sing “All We Like Sheep have Gone Astray” one beat behind and a whole step down (under my breath and only in rehearsal, of course)).

So how do I deal with the season?  I reckon that I’ve performed “O Come All Ye Faithful” over 500 times, and that’s not an exaggeration.  It’s become difficult to enjoy the more sentimental carols.  And what’s worse, I get a sick sense of superiority when I point out that “We Three Kings” is incorrect, as the Magi were in fact not kings, and that there’s actually no biblical reference to three of them (just three gifts).  I also love to roll my eyes when the angels appear “singing sweetly through the night”, because if the heavenly host appeared before me I would probably need a new pair of underpants.  And of course, there’s the countless references to snow, which rarely falls in Bethlehem.  (but it does on rare occasion, and when it does, it’s beautiful.)

Again – I love these hymns and the cultural train which flows from them.  But my eyes will be dry when we sing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” or even “Silent Night” (if these give you tears of joy, that’s wonderful.)  HOWEVER – there still are a few Christmas carols that can strike me in the heart; these usually go far beyond the image of a cuddly baby in a snow-covered manger with cherub angels hovering around.

Everyone knows the iconic first verse of “Once in Royal David’s City.”  But this hymn is less about the birth of Christ, and more suited to Christ’s second coming:

And our eyes at last shall see him, through his own redeeming love;
For that child who seemed so helpless is our Lord in heaven above;
And he leads his children on to the place where he is gone. 

Not in that poor lowly stable, with the oxen standing round,
We shall see him; but in heaven, where his saints his throne surround:
Christ, revealed to faithful eye, set at God’s right hand on high.

A modern hymn by American composer David Hurd, “A Stable Lamp is Lighted” is in our hymnal (#104) – the text is written by Richard Wilbur (© GIA Publications). Again, the first verse paints a gentle image of the stable, but the hymn is really about Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross (maybe this is why this hymn struggles to become a popular Christmas carol?)  What strikes me most is the subtle change in the meaning of “and every stone shall cry”, from verse to verse: 

A stable-lamp is lighted whose glow shall wake the sky;
The stars shall bend their voices, and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry, and straw like gold shall shine;
A barn shall harbor heaven, a stall become a shrine. 

 This child through David’s city shall ride in triumph by;
The palm shall strew its branches, and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry, though heavy, dull, and dumb,
And lie within the roadway to pave his kingdom come. 

Yet he shall be forsaken, and yielded up to die;
The sky shall groan and darken, and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry for stony hearts of men:
God’s blood upon the spearhead, God’s love refused again. 

 But now, as at the ending, the low is lifted high;
The stars shall bend their voices, and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry, in praises of the child,
By whose descent among us, the worlds are reconciled.

Finally, although Christina Rossetti’s most famous hymn begins with a very English (ie: not Middle Eastern) “earth stood hard as iron … snow had fallen, snow on snow”.  The last verse is simply perfect: 

What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man, I would do my part;
yet what I can I give him: give my heart.

- Erik Meyer