[unrelenting War on Advent] playlist

At the gym this morning, a trainer and her client were like, "Yay, Christmas music!" and my first response was "Unrelenting War on Advent!" and then I realized the song playing on the radio was "Let It Snow," which isn't actually a Christmas song. (In contrast, at Trader Joe's on Sunday I heard "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and cringed for multiple reasons.)

The trainer said that one year it was like the last day before Break and barely anyone was in and she had Christmas music on and someone asked her to turn it off and she did but she thought, "Grinch." I did not say, "Unrelenting War on Advent!"

She talked about some class she does where she plays holiday music and she really does try to be inclusive -- e.g., including the Chanukah song. (On reflection, I assume she means the Adam Sandler song -- which is trufax an amusing song, though, hi, I bet Jews have lots of songs they sing at Chanukah, because they're Jews and thus have lots of songs for every occasion.)

Somewhere in here the client commented that there aren't really a lot of "Advent-y" songs, and in my head I was like: THANK YOU for acknowledging that the season of Advent even exists! -- Advent songs aren't peppy upbeat radio songs (like "Let It Snow") because they're about expectant waiting, and also they're explicitly religious so they're not radio songs and ugh, we mostly don't play explicitly religious songs on the radio period for obvious reasons (though, okay, I have a Josh Groban album (no, I don't remember why -- possibly a gift from Singspiration) which has actualfax Jesus songs on it, so probably so does every other album, of which there are many since apparently everyone needs to make a Christmas/holiday album [Edit: And on that subject, on Thursday night, someone I know from high school posted to fb: "How was I completely unaware that Sufjan Stevens released another amazing 58 song, 5 album Christmas extravaganza? So ridiculously excited right now! http://www.npr.org/2012/11/19/165470944/first-listen-sufjan-stevens-silver-gold " /edit ] -- because people need 87 different renditions of the same few dozen songs for their parties? idek.), so when we talk about "Christmas music" we probably mostly mean either generic winter stuff (which varies in quality, and obviously elides the entire Southern Hemisphere) or songs about "Santa" -- which I want to burn in a fire because, ugh, lying to your children.

I am not trying to take away anyone's holiday joy* but seriously, if you want joyful music in the darkness, go for it. If you want it to explicitly reference the cold/snow/dark of the season, go for it. Please don't subject me to crappy music, and please respect my desire to observe my personal spiritual/religious practice of expectant waiting during the ~4 weeks of Advent and then celebration during the 12 Days of Christmas (see also: Lent and Eastertide); see also: my desire to not have "Christmas" cantatas or carol sings during Advent.

[Later today, someone on facebook linked to: The Daily Show with John Stewart: "The War on Christmas: Friendly Fire Edition" (it gets good about 4 minutes in -- "Christmas is so big now it's eating other holidays").]

* posts I have read recently include:

• Mary Luti's "A Good Word for the World in Advent" [via Pr. Molly]
• "Grace as: Permission to Celebrate" [via MagpieGirl]
• "A few ways in which the church cultivates irrelevance" on Episcopal Cafe [via OccupyAdvent]
• "Top 10 Reasons Christians Should Stop Whining About Secular Xmas" [via a UMC acquaintance]

When I was thinking about secular radio not playing Advent songs I remembered that on Sunday, @OccupyAdvent shared their #adventplaylist:

• Depeche Mode, "Enjoy the Silence"
• Blind Boys of Alabama, "People Get Ready"
• Bob Marley, "Stir it Up"
• Colin Hay, "Waiting for my Real Life to Begin"
• Mumford & Sons, "I Will Wait"
• Simon & Garfunkel, "Sound of Silence"
• Bear with us on this one: They Might Be Giants, "Birdhouse in Your Soul"
• Tom Waits, "Jesus Gonna Be Here"
• Over the Rhine, "Only God Can Save Us Now"
• Johnny Cash, "The Man Comes Around"

and then today they Tweeted the YouTube playlist link.

I am debating including Ani DiFranco, "The Waiting Song" (or "Second Intermission" -- yes, I ran a lyrics search for "wait").

Edit: @OccupyAdvent added:

• Beatles, "Let it be"
• Sam Cooke, "A Change Gonna Come"

And friends of mine suggested:

• Joni Mitchell, "River" (Coming on Christmas, waiting)
• Avril Lavigne, "I'm with You" (I tend think of Avril Lavigne's "I'm with You" as describing my relationship with God in general, but it strikes me as pretty darn Advent-y)

Plus, obvs., given my joy sadhana this season: Bob Franke, "Say Yes"

And after Wednesday's concert, possibly: Jenna Lindbo, "Angels on the Subway"

"comfort and joy..."

me: [catches up on some blog reading]
me: [enjoys Loreena McKennitt's "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" {found here} {lyrics here} ]

Later...
Housemate: "I'm amused that this is the first time I've heard you playing Christmas music."
me: "You can't play Christmas carols before Christmas."
Housemate: "But Christmas was 2 days ago."
me: "The season of Christmas lasts for 12 days."
Housemate: "So you're going to play this on repeat for 12 days?"
me: "... No."

"Welcome, Yule."

Friday night, I went to Revels with my mom.  I had basically zero expectation, but I actually enjoyed it a lot.

It opens with an excerpt from "Black Elk Speaks" -- "Black Elk's Vision," about Black Elk's vision of the Tree of Life (I thought of Revelation, of course).  At one point he's tending the [invisible] tree and a little white boy asks him what he's doing and he tells him and asks the boy, "Do you see the tree?" and the little white boy says no, and Black Elk says something like, "Well I guess I'll have to try harder," which I found so powerful (hi, I am a child of CWM, where we are so about embodying God's Kindom here on Earth).

At one point, a little girls asks him what his people do in the winter, and he tells her that they gather together inside and tell stories.  She says something like, "We do that, too.  I like stories," and I almost cried.  Though I almost-cry like all the freaking time these days.

I was a little disturbed by the representation of Native people/culture.  In part because when they were in groups they were usually (a) in full-body costumes that hide their faces, which felt a little dehumanizing/Othering to me (though it also meant I didn't have the visual squick of White people playing Native Americans) and (b) felt like an interlude passing through, without real connection either to the other characters on the stage or to the narrative as a whole.

And after a point at which Black Elk is lamenting that the Tree is withering, he sees white kids finishing a Tree of Life quilt and asks them the story of it, and they tell a weird folk tale about pregnant!Mary and a cherry tree, and most of the rest of the Second Act is Christmas music. I mean, I know it's called "The Christmas Revels" (the "In Celebration of the Winter Solstice" subtitle notwithstanding) but I felt a little bit like the subtext was, "The Tree of Life is Jesus Christ -- Native Americans couldn't keep that Tree alive; it takes Christ[ianity] to make that happen."  I mean, I do think in some ways that the story of Jesus Christ is The Greatest Story Ever Told -- that God incarnated, enfleshed God's self, dwelt among us amidst the marginalized people, proclaimed an open and abundant table to all, endured death and triumphed over IT, resurrecting in body and spirit, promising the same (present and future) hope for us -- Christ stands between us and the powers of darkness, assures us that nothing can separate us from the love of God.  But at the same time, it feels problematic to me to imply "our story is the culmination of your story."

There were a bunch of parts where we sang along (the last song before Intermission was "Lord of the Dance," and we sang the chorus, and as they exited into the atrium, they brought the people sitting in the front rows with them, dancing).  The guy leading us in that, as he had us practice, said: "I love harmony.  There are no wrong notes, just poor choices in the moment.  And then we move on to the next moment, with new choices."