The sixth day of Christmas
an omission, unomitted, a confession, and a recommendation or two
The omission is that I did not include the first two gifts in the newsletter, so…
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree…Christ, of course, represented by a partridge, the only bird that will die to protect its young.
On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, two turtle doves…meaning - the Old and New Testaments.
On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, six geese a-laying…supposedly, the meaning here hearkens to the six days of creation when the world was “hatched.”
And now, I must confess that the whole hidden meaning thing may not actually be true. There’s little evidence that the song is about anything other than some extravagant gift giving, though, it does work out, doesn’t it? Snopes says no, definitely not, but their reasoning is all conjecture as well. This article sums up the controversy. I do wonder if the debunking doesn’t give credit to the degree to which religion and faith permeated life and art in the past.
A few recommendation for the upcoming long weekend:
First is the absolutely delightful podcast, Slightly Foxed. Here's the link to the podcast. From there you can get to their website. The podcast is about books, reading them, writing them, publishing them, and most of all, loving them.
Next, we have this wonderful essay, Mathematics and the Mystery of the Incarnation, by Christopher Baglow in Church Life Journal, about the genealogy of Jesus. When the long list of Jesus’ forefathers is read out at Christmas Mass, it’s easy to get lulled a bit by the hard-to-pronounce names, to tune out after Abraham. But Baglow shows us something extraordinary: Jesus’ forefathers were for the most part a bunch of “homicidal maniacs, cheats, cowards, adulterers and liars.” And yet, as Baglow states, it is from their line that our salvation comes. Baglow explores the North Rose Window in Chartres Cathedral and its message, that:
“God is outside of, greater than, the visible figure, all the while intimately present to it, causing it to become something beautiful. He is shaping history not through coercive action, but through his presence, through his word. The message of the genealogy, then, is that you cannot sink too low to be outside of God’s plan of salvation. For if these bandits, thieves, child killers and greedy potentates can be the path to salvation, what keeps you or I from receiving the mercy and saving grace of God?”
And, finally, sticking with the Chartres Cathedral theme, “…a preview of paradise.”