MUSINGS ON A FAVOURITE CAROL -conversation between Pamela and me
Gabrielle Dean
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> Also Kieran and I have been thinking about our bete noir , the words
> of 'Every Star shall sing a carol'. It's a lovely tune, with some
> interesting ideas but - There is so much separation-thinking in it and
> too much 'high and low'.
>
> Take your point that the words have already been changed from 'man' to
> 'us'. - strangely I don't much mind 'man' when it means humankind.
>
> For the chorus, how about : -
> God in all ( or OF all ) overflows, holy is the name we know.
> That would get rid of that dreadful sense of God above and us below. -
> reminiscent of Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail where God pops
> his bearded head out of the clouds. Surely Jesus said a number of
> things that should have quashed that kind of thinking. 'The Kingdom of
> Heaven is within you' for one, and 'I say to you, ye are gods' in some
> translations. The whole meaning of the church and the Eucharist is,
> surely God IN us, , not above somewhere and separated.
>
> In L 3 of the first verse, we have: -
> 'Holy was the human body, holy was the human birth. - Only that one
> ? Is there something UN-holy about human bodies and human birth in
> general then? Sounds like it.
> How about 'Holy is the human body, holy is the human birth.;
>
> I'm happy to entertain the intergalactic possibilities, but in verse 4
> 3 we come to the line
> Who can tell what other body He will hallow for His own? . This seems
> to imply again, as does line 2 in the first verse, that there is
> something intrinsically UN holy about human bodies, and matter in
> general. and that they are no good unless they are somehow 'hallowed'.
> Old fashioned thinking that has done a lot of damage down the ages.
> How about 'Who can tell what other beings, he has hallowed for his
> own. ' Still doesn't get across the idea that all of God's creation is
> coming from a source that is Divine, but a bit better. You might come
> up with a better alternative. It would be so good to get the words in
> line with Peter's message. He preaches a beautiful sermon in
> inclusiveness and God in us, and then we sing this thing that
> completely contradicts his message.
>
> What confused beings we humans are !!!1 I wonder why we live this life
> thinking we are separate from and other than the God in whom we live
> and move and have our being.
> Love Pamela
This is interesting Pamela, and it has made me look at my
interpretation of Every Star. After you pointed out the God above us
below line, I thought 'Stars above, earth below', which is more
neutral. One bit of theology I respond to are 'Come and praise the
King of Heaven by whatever name you know' (inclusive of all who, as
Peter says, seek the Divine).
I agree about the change of tense for "Holy is the human body, holy is
the human birth" - the sense, as the Celtic spirituality, that
everything is sacred (not just Celtic though).
> Your response to verse 4 3 is interesting - "Who can tell what other
> body He will hallow for His own? . This seems to imply again, as does
> line 2 in the first verse, that there is something intrinsically UN
> holy about human bodies, and matter in general. and that they are no
> good unless they are somehow 'hallowed'. Old fashioned thinking that
> has done a lot of damage down the ages." My interpretation of 'Who
> can tell what other body He will hallow for His own?' is that the
> 'other body' could be anything - a whale, a mushroom, an unknown, even
> unimagined lifeform. But I agree with you that some may take this as a
> negation of the holiness of the human body.
Thank you for your musings - it is very good to think more deeply about
what we sing and say. I had an interesting response to some of the
liturgy on sunday. Often I just automatically sing the Gloria, but on
Sunday I thought Peter's Christmas Day sermon in which he affirmed for
us that we are 'Sought out', a 'Holy People' and I sang the gloria as
if I, a 'sought-out-holy-people, were ACTUALLY and REALLY singing Glory
to God (the way we are supposed to, I suppose). It felt very
different, a bit like when I had my personal epiphany in response to
"You are precious in my sight and honoured, and I love you" (from
Isaiah and a sentence used once in Fellowship of Contemplative Prayer).
So now I have that + "before I formed you in the womb I knew you" +
'You shall be called Sought out, a 'Holy People' to add to my
contemplative clothing and thus my approach to the liturgy.
However, on Christmas Day when I heard "You shall be called Sought out,
a 'Holy People", I also knew how easy must be for the Israelis to
believe that that is being said to them only. Once again, like the
favourite carol, what we do with the Word depends on our
interpretation!
Love
Gabby
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