Caroling

Posted on December 27, 2003 in Festivals Myths & Mysticism Reading

I found The Penguin Book of Carols remaindered in a discount book store. It’s still in print and worth the $12.95 at Amazon, though you may luck out as I did.

It’s a fine book that gives the background on many of our favorite Yuletide (pronounced yool not yoo-lie or however that Heibel woman pronounces her name). In addition to the traditional lyrics, it includes alternate readings such as this timely parody (for Americans caught in Bush’s “free speech zones”) of “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen”*:

God rest you merry, gentlemen

  Let nothing you dismay;

The Herald Angels cannot sing,

  The cops arrest them on the wing,

And warn them of the docketing

  Of anything they say.

Then there is this irreverent rewrite of the German language classic “Stille Nacht”:

Silent night, Solstice Night,

All is calm, all half price

Round yon department sgtore,

All of us strangers,

Wondering who will get

The last Power Rangers,

Shop in heavenly peace.

Shop in heavenly peace.

On a more serious note, the volume includes this modern hymn which, though at first hearing may sound humorous speaks of the real spirit of Christmas and the religion founded upon the teachings of Christmas:

Mary, blessed teenage mother,

With what holy joy you sing!

Humble, yet above all other,

From your womb shall healing spring.

Out of wedlock pregnant found,

Full of grace with blessing crowned.


Mother of the homeless stranger

Only outcasts recognize,

Point us to the modern manger;

Not a sight for gentle eyes!

O the joyful news we tell:

‘Even here, Immanuel!’**

Joyful news indeed! This is the attitude we should allow birth in our hearts in the season of the light that shines in the darkness, a light that the darkness cannot grasp.

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*The author warns us that the comma is important: “It is not, as so often thought, addressed to merry gentlemen but rather to those who may be anxious.”

**The film Bless the Child begins with the remembrance of Mary’s destitution in a tale about the return of the Christ in modern day America. The setting is horrific, but the story profoundly moving.