Who Took The Merry Out of Christmas? - The Staple Singers (mp3)

I really love the way this song opens, flute and tambourine trills and humming, then a killer stanza:

Who took the merry out of Christmas?
People all over the world forgot about merry!
Too busy fighting wars, trying to make it to Mars
Searching for light and can’t seem to find the right star

I am a busy person who is not always sure that I have found the right star to navigate by as I fling my small efforts towards the gaping inadequacy of the world.

This evening, I drove past an old man begging for change, standing in the slush in the middle of the street, one hand holding a cardboard sign, and the other supporting his weight on a walking stick made of medical-looking plastic, and it made me sad that no one was looking after him. I also met a baby with soft cheeks and a knit dinosaur hat who was wriggled into a green snowsuit before leaving dinner.

Last night, I made pizza from the dough my mum had left to rise earlier in the day, while old friends pointed out paintings they recognized from middle school sleepovers. I also felt sad that some friends were absent because they can’t cross the US border right now.

Today, I scrolled past stories of people being deported to countries where they were tortured. I also played silly improv games with my family friends, making sandwiches out of my sorta-uncle’s shortbread and my dad’s stash of fancy chocolate.

I turn to poetry to make sense of these contrasts. Mary Oliver’s Don’t Hesitate. Maggie Smith’s Good Bones. Given the Christianity of this song, Jack Gilbert’s A Brief for the Defense feels especially apt. An excerpt:

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine.
…

If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.

The world is now full of sorrow, as it was in the beginning, but I am somewhat ideologically committed to believing that it will not ever be this way, world without end; the inadequate world can be repaired. As we work on those repairs, it may be noble to sacrifice merriment in pursuit of our ends, but I also want to act as if I believe joy is good in itself. Let’s not forget about merry.

Aiming for a stubborn gladness,
Tessa

PS oops somehow failed to click send on this one yesterday!