Jordan absolutely loves being in the Northwest Boychoir and is learning all kinds of great songs. The other day he was singing "Dem Bones" in the car, and I had fun singing it with him. He didn't know the story, so I told it to him. It's quite a story. The choir is singing it for Halloween, and it is rather ghoulish ("As I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them"). But it's also inspiring, because it's meant to convey that even when it seems like there is no hope at all, there can be life and strength again. I told Jordan how this was an African-American slave song, and that songs like this helped slaves keep their hopes alive in tough times. We agreed that it made the song more interesting to know the story behind it.
As in almost any choir in the western world, winter brings Christmas carols. (There is a Hanukkah song too.) I admit that I sometimes find Christmas carols tiresome, because it's not my holiday and they are so pervasive. Jordan, however, says he has no concern, that he isn't really paying attention to the words anyway, just enjoying the music. He has a good attitude.
Monday night, he asked me to sing Away in a Manger for our bedtime song. I found that I wasn't comfortable with that.
Me: You know, I don't really feel right singing that song for bedtime. I'd be happy to sing it with you during the day, but not at bedtime. It's because it's a Jesus song.
Jordan: It is?
Me: Yeah, you know, 'the little Lord Jesus alseep in the hay.'
Jordan: Oh, I didn't know that. I don't sing the words, just the solfege.
Well, how about that! He didn't know Away in a Manger was a Jesus song. This, in my opinion, is in the category of cultural information an American child needs to have. And as with Dem Bones, it's enriching to know what you're singing about. Hopefully. So next time we were in the car alone, I told him the baby Jesus story. I told him that Jesus was a real person, a Jewish person actually, and a great teacher with many very good ideas. I said that Jesus is the number one most special person to Christians because they believe he is both a man and God at the same time. I said that honestly I don't really get that. (I hope this is not disrespectful; I think that even among believers it is a mystery.) I went on:
Me: The baby Jesus story starts when a special woman named Mary gets pregnant. You remember how a woman gets pregnant?
Jordan: Yeah. The man does so-and-so. [He said it just like that: so-and-so.]
Me: Right. [This was not the time to grill him on the specifics.] So what was special about this time, in the story, was that this woman got pregnant and no man did so-and-so with her. Just God made her pregnant, with God.
Jordan: Huh.
Me: And she was visiting a city from out of town, and when it was time for the baby to come, she needed somewhere to stay. So she tried to check into a hotel. But the hotel didn't have any rooms available. So they said she could stay in the barn. This was a hotel with a barn. And that's where the baby Jesus was born. So when it says "Away in a Manger," that means in the barn. A manger is a barn. [I remembered later that actually the manger is the feeding trough; I'll have to correct that.]
Jordan: So that's why he was asleep in the hay.
Me: Right.
I decided that was enough for one day.
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3 comments:
I told Justin this story on our way to the gym, and it was just as funny the second time. :)
As a Christian, I don't find it disrespectful at all to hear you say that you don't understand why I (we) would think Jesus could be both God and human. Paradox and irony are two cornerstones of faith and truth, for me. Sometime I'll have to tell you more about why I say that.
I told Justin this story on our way to the gym, and it was just as funny the second time. :)
As a Christian, I don't find it disrespectful at all to hear you say that you don't understand why I (we) would think Jesus could be both God and human. Paradox and irony are two cornerstones of faith and truth, for me. Sometime I'll have to tell you more about why I say that.
Love this.
I took choir as a kid growing up in New Jersey, and each December our concert was a mix of Christmas and Hanukkah songs. When we moved away from New Jersey and its fairly prominent Jewish community, I found that I missed the Hanukkah songs in the mix of December music.
Also interesting: Religious songs can be particularly useful to historians of religion because often times the songs laypeople sing express quite a different theology than the doctrine that clergy preach. Ultimately, it's the songs - the rituals that the people actually perform themselves - that reveal a community's theology, not necessarily the doctrinal tomes that theologians in ivory towers write. Historians are really only just starting to recognize this, and to study African-American spirituals with the same seriousness as the dense/expansive works of Karl Barth.
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