In a Minor Key

The Santa Rosa symphony’s December offering this year was dark: two pieces by Brahms, the Tragic Overture and the German Requiem, were rounded off with the powerful singing of two American spirituals by Jubilant Sykes, baritone--"Motherless Child" and "Were you there?" A community honor choir sang the Requiem, which admittedly is one of the more “positive” of requiems: the third movement sung by the soprano and choir was lyrically sweet. But there was no escaping the minor key of the evening.

Stark contrast to the cheery “jingle bell hop” greeting me in the grocery store, not to mention “Here Comes Santy Claus” and all the rest that have been playing since before Thanksgiving in some of our local establishments. And, lest you think I’m entering my Bah! Humbug! phase what really set me thinking was how powerfully the juxtaposition between the symphony’s offerings and the musical background in the stores speaks to the contrast between the Christmas story as told in the gospels and the “holidays” proclaimed in our culture.

A friend remarked on the strangeness of the dark offerings at the concert in this holiday time of year, and I told her that from a Christian perspective the minor key was the right key for the season. The birth of Christ has been viewed as connected to his death since the early years of the church. The story of his birth has been understood to foreshadow the cross. The vulnerability at his birth and as he walks toward his death, the powers that be and their violence, the no place at the inn theme echoing from birth to crucifixion.

The other night I watched the video The Nativity, and was struck again by how dark a tale it really is. Oh, the star is bright and illuminates the birth, but the sense of impending trouble, the rejection in Bethlehem, the threat of Herod and his minions, the need for the wise men to go home by another route, the killing of the holy innocents and the escape to Egypt: it's a very dark tale. Birth in the midst of brokenness, threat and death. The fragility of new life.

And, really would anything less be as precious? I think of the music in the mall, the decorations, the enforced cheeriness of it all---and I can't help but be thankful that that is so far removed from the promise of Christmas. I go about this season knowing so many who are hurting, aware of the turbulence of our world, the tenuousness of our economy, the countless folks who are homeless and on the move around the globe, the machinations of the powers that be, the longing of so many for meaning in their lives. Same old, same old. No amount of glitter or jingle can speak to that.

Instead we Advent-keepers are invited to a real world gift of grace and new life to be found in the midst of all the darkness--the possibility of new beginnings offered again and again in the context of fragility. Opening ourselves to that offering is the calling of the season. Our minor key Advent hymns are all about that.

A friend told me the other day that she didn't have any problem saying with Mary, "Here I am Lord." but her question is: "Where are you?" What a great confession. One I could make most days. It's a minor key longing at we have deep in our hearts. What we long for I believe is found in the little story of the birth. It's a tiny little story, and a hard-to-notice birth. The darkness that surrounds it seems to engulf us--and makes it hard for us to attend. Hard to give yourself over to something so seemingly insignificant. At least that's how it is for me. All of it: minor key. Beautiful, strangely beautiful, and true.