Last year around this time, my neighbor Laurie organized a good old-fashioned caroling party (a medieval English tradition) for all the neighbors and kids to go tromping through the snow and sing Christmas carols around the neighborhood.
I was so excited. It had been years since I had gone caroling, one of my favorite things in the world to do. In college, I used to go caroling every year all around downtown San Francisco with the UC Berkeley Glee Club - singing in hospitals, restaurants, street corners, underground BART stations, alumni functions, Ghiradelli Square. I know all the words (but weirdly, only the harmonies) to all the standard (and a few not-so-standard) Christmas songs.
One of the things I love about Christmas caroling is the opportunity to stand in the sacred for just a few moments in this secular world of ours to sing praise and glory without having to play it cool. It really does not matter if the words swelling and circling around us are “Baruch Adonai” or “He shall purify” or “Sweet little holy chile’, we didn’t know who you wuz,” it is not often that we have opportunities in polite society to express feelings of passion or adoration.
Plus I have a certain weakness for men who sing. (click on link for more)
13th Annual Evening of Sacred Song to benefit Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights (WICIR) - AnnArbor.com
No comments:
Post a Comment