Be Love

Candles in the Abbey at Iona

Last September, after more than a year of working with a committee to plan and write a grant application, PW received a big fat grant for her sabbatical. This is enabling her to do a lot of travelling this spring. A little more than a week ago, she and I returned from a spending Holy Week on the Isle of Iona in Scotland, with a side trip to London to see Helen Mirren and Judi Dench in their starring roles in two different plays.

This morning, I dropped PW off at the airport for several weeks of travelling to Israel (the village of Migdal in the Galilee, Jerusalem, and the West Bank if she can figure out how to get in), Turkey (Ephesus and Istanbul), and Provence.

We were both teary this morning as we looked at such a long time of being apart. But the kids and I will be meeting her in France–which still seems unbelievable, even though we’ve been planning for it for more than six months, ever since we heard that she received the grant.

When I arrived at my office around mid-day, the neighborhood was abuzz. My building is two blocks from the finish line for the Boston Marathon. My hospital sponsors a team of more than 60 runners every year. Two people from my office were running today. Our events team is heavily involved in making sure that the runners on our team are well cared for, before, during, and after the race. Many people from my office (which is a couple miles east of the hospital complex) stroll down near the finish line to cheer people on throughout the day.

Well, unless you live under a rock, only to emerge to read my infrequent blog posts, you know that shortly before 3 pm today two bombs went off about 50-100 yards apart, near the finish line for the marathon. In our 9th floor offices, two blocks away, we heard the two loud explosions, and our building shuddered. As we gathered at the windows to look for smoke from our 9th floor vantage point, what we saw instead were hordes of people running in panic away from Boylston Street. It seemed to take forever for the sirens to start, but once they did, it seemed like they never stopped. By the end of the workday, the street in front of my building was locked down to cars and pedestrians, and we were directed to leave via the basement, finding ourselves in the alley behind the building.

I’m pretty sure that all my co-workers are accounted for. The two who were running both checked in safe. Safety. Be safe. All over the book of faces, people are telling each other to be safe. I get what that means, and I’m touched by it. But on another level, I wonder what does “safe” even mean, especially after today?

The most persistent thing I am struck by is the question I kept hearing repeatedly on the radio as I drove home on the Mass Pike, which had so little traffic on it at 5:30 pm that it looked more like how it is on a Saturday morning: “Will we ever feel safe again?”

Safety is one of those things that is so subjective, I tend to think that it’s beyond my control. I mean, a year and a half ago, I was sitting at a red light, minding my own business, and some bozo rammed into my car with such force, going so fast, that his car went airborne over mine and landed on its side, in front of my car. I was unhurt, but my car (that is, PW’s car) was totaled. It was yet another reminder, in a world that teems with them, that even when we think we’re being completely and totally safe, we are at risk.

PW is so much more sensible about safety issues. Before she left this morning, we reviewed the two big things I’m not allowed to do when I’m home alone: get up on a ladder and get on the roof. It wouldn’t otherwise occur to me to not do those things just because I’m home alone. This is just one of the many aspects of our relationship in which we complete each other. For all I know, it’s why I’m still alive.

I climbed a high rock to take this photo, looking west from the Machair on Iona.

Still, “be safe” doesn’t fit as a watchword for me. It’s not that I want to endanger myself needlessly. But today’s events are yet another reminder that you can be doing everything right and end up cut down by senseless violence and mayhem.

So I think I’d rather Be Love than Be Safe. Be Love is what I want to live by, if for no other reason than the simple fact that it’s a charge I can be completely responsible for, right down to the last breath that I take, regardless of when or how I take it.

Tonight I decided that my ultimate goal is to evolve to the point of choosing to Be Love over every other possible option, at every point of every day. I don’t know exactly what that will look like, or how long it will take me to get there, but I’m pretty sure I need to be in better shape.

Be Love out there, people. Be Love. Who’s with me?

I’m for this

[Update: New video added at the bottom. Thanks, Bruce, for the reminder of how much I love Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Ashes and Roses" album.]

This is the third year in a row I’ve posted this song for Valentine’s Day. I guess that makes it a tradition, or at least a thing. I look for other songs, but I always come back to this one.

For something more recent, there’s this. What’s not to love about a love song with the lyric “I ain’t no monkey but I know what I like”?:

Thanks to prompting from my friend Bruce’s comment, I found this video of the song that he mentioned, Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Jericho.” Now we have a complete trifecta of beauty.

Will we be extremists for hate or for love?

“so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town”

Today is both the holiday for celebrating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and the ceremonial inauguration of President Barack Obama.

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

So it’s as good a day as any to review Dr. King’s great “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

“Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.”

In between the inauguration festivities and the parade of parties tonight, I present to you a collection of materials about what is arguably the greatest-ever articulation of civil rights.

“ Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.”

Tide chart for the past week

Forbidden snacks and a movie

In weighing whether to play in her hockey games last Friday night and Saturday morning or to stay home for Lucy’s last night and morning, GForce opted to play. She told me she’d prefer time alone with the dog. So after school on Friday, before she left for her evening hockey game, GForce holed up with Lucy in the den, where they watched “Lady and the Tramp” together while GForce fed Lucy many Fritos, as well as a few other forbidden people-food snacks.

On seeing this, Tiger ran upstairs to PW’s office to tell on GForce and Lucy. With his animated meowing and dancing, he clearly conveyed his outrage. However, the content of his complaint was lost in translation, and the breach of protocol continued unabated.

* * * * * 

This is why we can’t have nice things

When our friends TK and GG arrived on Saturday, they brought with them a service of blessing for Lucy that GG created. We lit candles all over the living room and gathered around an excited Lucy (More company! Woo hoo! Hey, look! Have you seen this nasty stuffed toy I eviscerated years ago? Okay, but have you seen it UP CLOSE??) Eventually, Lucy settled back down and we began to reminisce and say prayers. During one of the more tender moments, Tiger jumped up onto the coffee table and sauntered over one of the lit candles.

Yes, he caught on fire.

No, he did not appear to notice.

Yes, the tearful mood was pierced by Lulu shrieking, “HE’S ON FIRE!”

Yes, TK grabbed him and put the fire out immediately.

Yes, the entire house reeked of burned fur for most of the rest of the day.

* * * * * * * *

A tongue mightier than death

In my previous post, I mentioned that one of Lucy’s, um, features was that she was very licky. This feature drove all of us crazy, and the most frequent daily correction of her behavior over the past nearly 10 years was, “Lucy, NO LICKING.”

As an example, most mornings when she was ready for me to get up, she would come to my side of the bed, rest her chin on the bed near my face, and heave a big dramatic sigh. I would reach over to scratch her neck and chest while she sat there, gamely trying to keep her mouth closed. Invariably, her head would tilt down and tongue would begin to creep out. If I said, “Ah ah!” she’d tuck her tongue back into her mouth. If I didn’t say anything, she’d slowly push her tongue out far enough to touch my hand or my wrist. If I still didn’t say anything, she would leave her tongue there for awhile. If I still didn’t say anything (because this was a game we played), only then would she commence licking.

In my experience, the veterinary protocol for euthanizing an animal is first to sedate the animal, and once the dog is asleep the vet administers the drug that stops the animal’s heart. On Saturday afternoon, as the sedative began to take effect, our licky Lucy began to lick the air. The sleepier she got, the slower she licked. When she was fully sedated, she put her chin on the floor and the tip of her tongue was still sticking out. She commenced snoring, which made us all laugh through our tears. Then we noticed her tongue sticking out and we laughed a little harder. How fitting that Lucy’s determination to lick could not be conquered by sleep, or even death. No wonder we couldn’t train her to not lick while she was with us!

* * * * * * * *

She is not here

In the last month of Lucy’s life, Tiger was unfailingly attentive to her. Any time she would lie down, he would rush to her side and begin licking her head. We probably should have clued in that something was up with her, but of course only the official diagnosis of cancer from a board-certified veterinarian and the ridiculously fast growth of the lump on her neck made us sit up and take notice.

After Lucy died on Saturday, Lulu went and got Tiger (who made himself scarce after his attempt at self-immolation had failed) and plopped him down next to Lucy’s head. “Here you go, Tige. Take one last lick.”

Tiger refused to look at Lucy’s body. Instead, he craned his neck and appeared to scan the ceiling, looking all around above Lucy’s body. He seemed to be saying, “What is this? I’m not licking that. That is NOT my Lucy. She’s not here.” Even now, remembering that brief moment gives me goosebumps.

* * * * *

Mad cat

On Sunday night, PW and I sat exhausted on the couch in the den, watching TV. Tiger was fast asleep next to PW. At some point, I turned from the TV to look at him and noticed that he was awake, and that he was sitting next to PW on the couch, with his body turned facing us. And he was staring at us in this frozen-in-time, unblinking way. It was a little unsettling, and grew more unsettling the longer he stared. Several minutes. PW reached over to pat him and he started meowing at her. He didn’t move, but his meowing grew louder and more insistent. We tried talking to him soothingly, but he continued to meow. At one point, PW reached over to pat him again, and this time he turned his back and snarled at her.

When I told this to GForce, and suggested that PW and I deduced that he’s mad that Lucy’s gone, GForce said, “Well, in the animal world, he’s been widowed.”

* * * * *

I’d like to teach the world to cry

As we were driving to our veterinarian’s office to give them Lucy’s body so it can be cremated, I recalled a similar trip we made not quite 12 years ago with our dog Zoey. And I recalled feeling the same way then as I do now. All these people out in the world, doing whatever they’re doing, oblivious to my shattered heart, make me feel so mad. Tiger’s right: it’s an outrage. Stop all the clocks.

Except in the foremost thought it my head is more like, “What is WRONG with you people? What is WRONG with you people who are playing in the snow? You people who are walking along, talking and laughing. You people who are shopping at the hardware store. You people who aren’t crying. My dog is DEAD!!”

My anger isn’t so much that Lucy is dead. Every living thing dies. I’m angry that my heartbreak, which at times feels so consuming to me, is so relatively tiny that it’s not reflected in the face of everyone I see. In my grief fantasies, I bastardize that Coca-Cola jingle and turn it into “I’d like to teach the world to cry, and sob along with me…” My dog is dead, and there are moments when deep down I want tears streaming down every face I see.

Then, a gift.

Monday morning, on my bus ride to work, one of the two women sitting in the row behind me quietly sobbed through the entire 20-minute ride. She was gasping those quavering clipped breaths that are the heartbroken person’s refrain.

Monday night, at prison, PW and I shared a table with an incarcerated woman who was so overcome by tears while she colored that she put down her markers and sat with her head in her hands while her tears dripped down onto the table.

It felt weird to be comforted by the despair of those two strangers, but their tears were strangely calming. Finally, I felt, the universe is listening. Thank you.

* * * * *

We got no stinkin’ tide charts

We’ve heard from lots of people expressing their condolences, and wondering how we’re doing. I’ve written before that my own experience of grief is not a series of linear stages. It’s more like the tide. And this grief, with its magnetic pull that draws all other griefs of my life toward it, feels like trying to make my way to the beach through a particularly rough surf. One moment I have solid footing and the water at my back. The next thing I know, it’s all loose rocks churned up by the undertow, and I’m struggling against the water as it rushes back out to sea.

Every time I feel caught up in the tide, I think, “Oh, this is the worst part.” It might be prompted by seeing a tuft of Lucy’s fur. Arriving home to the chasm that is the absence of Lucy’s greeting. Countless other things. In reality, the worst part of death is the way it shatters whatever our routines used to be, and how long it takes our brains and our hearts to process our new reality.

On Saturday evening, we had theater tickets, purchased several weeks ago before we had any inkling of what our day was going to be like. I was at the sink late Saturday afternoon, doing the usual math in my head: “If the show starts at 7:30, we need to leave at 6:45, so we’ll eat by 6, and I still need to shower. So I should walk the dog by…Oh. Right.”

High tide.

After I re-collected myself, I went up to GForce’s room and said, “Want to take a walk with me? I feel at sea here with no Lucy to walk before we have to leave.” GForce replied, “Sure, mama. Do you need me to wear the leash?”

I was surprised by my belly laugh. Low tide.

When we arrived home late Saturday night, after a spectacular show (the American Repertory Theater’s “Pippin”), PW, GForce, and I ended up huddled together in the kitchen while I sobbed harder than I had all day.

High tide.

After I re-collected myself, we broke our huddle and headed upstairs to bed after our long and difficult day. I took a deep breath as I looked at the front door and called after GForce and PW, “Anyone want to join me in the front yard for one last pee? For old times’ sake?”

“No thanks, but knock yourself out!”

Smile. Lights out. Low tide.

And so it goes. There’s no timetable for this particular tide we Lucy lovers are in. It is predictable only in the fact of it. Best to just keep swimming.

On Them Light Has Shined

Lucy: proper name, from L. Lucianus (cf. Fr. Lucien), a derivative of Roman Lucius, from lux (gen. lucis) “light” (see light (n.)).

Lucy — September 2, 2002 – January 5, 2013

If you’re lucky, somewhere in the course of your life an animal picks you who gives you much more love than you can possibly return. If you are luckier still, the animal who picks you lives a long and relatively healthy life. And if you are even luckier still, this abundance of luck suddenly pivots into a kind of curse.

It feels like both the best and the most terrible luck in life to have arrived at this point with our 10-year-old golden retriever, Lucy. We learned this past Wednesday that the fast-growing lump on her neck was an inoperable cancer. PW and I made the excruciating decision to spare Lucy any more suffering than she has already endured, to allow her life to end while she’s still recognizable to us as the goofy, light-bearing wonder she has always been.

And so, Lucy’s humans, on whom her light has shined—who have been adored, and sometimes tolerated, far more than we can begin to comprehend or repay—have to let go of our animal before we are ready. And really, is it ever possible to be ready to let go of a love that has exceeded our wildest dreams, both in its longevity and its sheer size?

This morning GForce and I took Lucy for one last frolic in the snow. Lulu gave her a few Christmas cookies (Lucy loved baked goods of all kinds). Then we gathered with a couple of dear friends, who are facing a similar decision with one of their three dogs, and had a little ceremony of farewell. And then an amazingly compassionate veterinarian came to our house so that Lucy and we could say goodbye in the comfort and familiarity of our own home.

When we adopted Lucy at nine months old, she came to us from the National Education for Assist Dog Services (NEADS) with a list of about 50 commands she had down pat. She could turn on lights, open doors, and, my favorite feature, she never jumped up on people. Her name was Robyn.

Robyn was raised in the NEADS “Prison PUP Partnership,” which places puppies in prisons all over New England to be raised and trained by incarcerated people for assist dog work. I had put in an application for one of the NEADS “furloughed favorites” several months prior to getting a call from them, in July, 2003.

Robyn was “furloughed” from professional assist dog work at 9 months because of hip displaysia, and she was a perfect fit for our family. When PW and I first met her at NEADS, she was fresh out of prison, and her NEADS handler warned us that the prison pups develop an intense bond with the people who raise them because they have so much 1×1 time. She added that in the couple of days since Robyn had left the prison on her furlough, every time she entered a room she would frantically look around for “her guy.” Then the handler went to get Robyn.

Sure enough, Robyn came bursting into the room a la Kramer from the old Seinfeld show. She frantically looked around, then locked in on PW and me and scrabbled excitedly across the tile floor, sliding to a sitting stop on top of my feet. She tilted her head back to look at me and grinned. And that’s pretty much what the last almost 10 years have been like with her.

After that first meeting, PW and I reluctantly left her behind so that we could go home and get our house ready. A couple of days later, the five of us piled into the station wagon and drove an hour west to the NEADS facility to bring Robyn home.

Of course, we brought toys with us. The whole way home, in the rear view mirror I’d see Robyn’s head randomly popping up as she threw the toys from the way back into the back seat where the girls were jammed in next to each other. No offense to anyone named Robyn, but we all felt this dog needed a different name. The five of us discussed new names, and we settled on Lucy, in no small part because her fur had a reddish hue and her personality reminded us of Lucille Ball. She seemed very much like the kind of dog who would have lots of “‘splainin’ to do,” as Ricky always said to Lucy in the “I Love Lucy” show.

Little did we know.

Sure enough, Lucy’s “counter surfing” skills were unparalleled and the only place we could safely leave food out was on top of the refrigerator. One Christmas at PW’s mom’s house, we put all the pies out to cool on a sideboard in the dining room and left for a walk, with Lucy secured in the kitchen by baby gates. When we got back, two pies were gone and a very uncomfortable and bloated Lucy had somehow jumped back over the gates into the kitchen, where her sugar high gave her smile a demented quality.

A couple of years later, that same demented sugar-high smile was tinged with green Christmas cookie frosting after she nosed her way into the room where four dozen Christmas cookies were cooling and ate every last cookie.

PW’s dreams of taking Lucy to work with her were crushed by Lucy’s love of baked goods. It proved impossible to keep Lucy out of the food pantry storage bins at the church. She would sneak off when PW was busy with something, return with a half-eaten loaf of focaccia in her mouth, and fix PW with big sad eyes, as if to say, “I have been bad, and here is the evidence that convicts me.”

In her range of mishaps and facial expressions, our Lucy was the canine embodiment of Lucy Ricardo from that classic old TV show. Because she had such a long and vibrant life, there are way too many Lucy stories to tell in one sitting.

She was both incredibly sweet and ridiculous. She could sit quietly for a long time while our cat Tiger licked her entire face, and she was also given to random air raid siren howling in her sleep. She snored loudly. She would carry on entire conversations if we took the time to grunt back at her. She slept in positions that seemed unbelievably uncomfortable. She was very licky. She had a great smile. She had terrible breath. She loved to grab Tiger around the middle between her  front feet and drag him around the house. Tiger also loved this.

One can learn a lot about love from a dog. I like to think that all of us learned how to love each other a little better from getting to live more than nine years with Lucy. And as it often goes with love, the greatest depths of our connections are plumbed at ending times.

Since our animals can’t talk or write to us about what might be the best time to move on, we have to figure that out, both for them and for us. It is an unbearably heavy load. Thankfully, PW and the girls and I agreed that we didn’t want to wait until the sweet and goofy Lucy we knew was eclipsed by a hollowed out, incontinent, and immobile shell of her former self. We will not choose to let her suffer to squeeze a few more days or weeks out of a well-lived and long life.

I know so many people who, after putting their diminished pets down, have said, “I probably waited too long.” That is not the song that our family wanted to sing, even though we all are probably still feeling wobbly about this decision. So we made our Alleluias with broken hearts and through a river of tears, surrounded by the love of friends, family, and probably quite a few strangers.

The prophet Isaiah wrote,

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.

How lucky we have been to have been chosen by Lucy, to have basked in her light for these past nearly 10 years. There are not enough words for the gratitude we feel.

I made this video to share some of Lucy’s spirit with you. The song is “Heavenly Day,” by Patty Griffin. Griffin has described this gorgeous love song as having been inspired by her dog, so it seemed the perfect soundtrack. The last image in the video is a watercolor portrait of Lucy that Lulu gave me for Christmas last week. When I opened it, I burst into tears because even then I could feel the shadow of this day.

Apocalypse How Now Brown Cow

PW and I have been talking a lot about dark matter, dark energy, the Higgs boson, stuff like that. We like to pretend we’re theoretical physicists, being the thrill-seeking adrenaline junkies that we are.

And behold! We’re at the Winter Solstice, the day of the longest night in the Northern Hemisphere. Bazillions of folks who don’t care (or even know) what the Mayan calendar says about any other day of the year are suddenly going on about the end of the world. I bet the folks in the Southern Hemisphere can’t wait for our world to end so we’ll quit our bellyaching about all this darkness.

I have to say, I’m a fan of the darkness. Don’t get me wrong; I’m right there, complaining about how few hours of daylight there are; I can’t wait for more daylight hours. And. This morning–as I was walking to the bus in the close and cloudy damp, through the wind that was blowing everywhichaway, playing chicken with the occasional burst of raindrops–I thought, “Come on, darkness. I’ll dance with you.” Maybe that’s what happens when you get into one of those theoretical physicist grooves.

Once I was safely planted in my plastic bus seat for my commute into the big city, I decided I should share a few Solsice-y things with my Crooked Liners.

First, did you know that the “cataclysmic event” definition of the word “apocalypse” is a modern invention? I didn’t. The word originates from the Greek apokalyptein, which means ”uncover, disclose, reveal.” Its general sense in Middle English was “insight, vision, hallucination.” I copied that from etymonline.com, so you know it’s true. Couldn’t we all use a little more insight and vision, maybe a GOOD hallucination or two? And isn’t it possible that some of the best insights and visions come to us under cover of darkness? I just re-read those two questions in a voice that parodies how Mike Wallace asked questions on 60 Minutes, and I encourage you to do the same.

The second thing I want to share with you is this excerpt from a poem by Yehuda Amichai. I’m willing to forgive his notion of God as male, because the ideas here are so refreshing:

from the poem “Gods Change, Prayers are Here to Stay”
by Yehuda Amichai
from the book Open Closed Open: Poems

I don’t want an invisible god. I want a god who is seen
but doesn’t see, so I can lead him around
and tell him what he doesn’t see. And I want
a god who sees and is seen. I want to see
how he covers his eyes, like a child playing blindman’s bluff.

I want a god who is like a window I can open
so I’ll see the sky even when I’m inside.
I want a god who is like a door that opens out, not in,
but God is like a revolving door, which turns, turns on its hinges
in and out, whirling and turning
without a beginning, without an end.

I declare with perfect faith
that prayer preceded God.
Prayer created God,
God created human beings,
human beings create prayers
that create the God that creates human beings.

That poem just changed revolving doors for me

Third, I stumbled across this Rose Cousins song yesterday. The chorus of “The Darkness” is from Wendell Berry’s beautiful little meditation on darkness.

To Know The Dark
by Wendell Berry

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

I think Wendell Berry would be pleased with what Rose Cousins has made of his poem. Happy Solstice to all, and to all a dark, apocalyptic night–in the original sense of the word.

Plea. Gift. Sign.

It’s my turn to offer up some thoughts about Advent and/or Christmas music, as part of a blog chain started by my pal Harriet the Spy. Here are the other links in  this blog chain:

Harriet at spynotes
Hugh at Permanent qui vive
Jeanne at Necromancy never pays
Cranky at It’s My Blog!
Dr. Geek at Dr. Geek’s Laboratory
Lemming at Lemming’s Progress
Readersguide at Reader’s Guide to…
Freshhell at Life in Scribbletown
edj3 at kitties kitties kitties
My Kids’ Mom at Pook and Bug
Yours truly
Magpie at Magpie Musing
Dave at The Ideal Dave
and then Harriet at spynotes will do a wrap-up

I love being in the company of such a groovy group of writers and thinkers, and I’m a little baffled at how I stumbled into this gang. I hope you’ll go read their blogs if you don’t know about them already. There’s very cool stuff happening out here in Internetville.

The Little Drummer Boy
How much have I always hated this song? Let me count the ways. Nah, rather than count, I will tell you that I have hated this song with the intensity of a thousand supernovas, ever since I can remember. For a host of reasons, this song has always been like fingernails on a chalkboard for me. Until a couple of years ago.

In 2010, PW’s friend Ana Hernandez released an album of Advent and Christmas music called “An Unexpected Christmas,” in which Ana’s arrangements of some familiar songs, as well as some original work, are sung by the Virginia Girls Choir from St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, VA.

The first track on this album is The Little Drummer Boy. Cue Joybells’ rolled eyes, the “Oh geez, I can’t believe they’re beginning the album with THAT!” I had my finger hovering over the fast forward button, but then this unfolded:

I love the layers of percussion, with Ana’s tight harmonies shimmering above. And mostly I love the persistent minor-key-ness of it. And now it’s an earworm that I welcome.

Once in Royal David’s City

Yeah, yeah, this is an old holiday chestnut. Except when it cracks you open as if YOU are the nut.

At PW’s previous church, I sang in the choir–mostly tenor. Five years ago was the last midnight Christmas Eve service for PW and me, before we moved on to Emmanuel Church. So it was already emotionally loaded for me.

The music director, A, and his wife, L (who was also the soprano soloist for the first verse of “Once in Royal David’s City) had a six-month-old baby girl at the time. As the choir was lining up in the hallway outside the sanctuary getting ready to process, L was trying to get Baby E to fall asleep before the service started. It was late and E was so tired she was cross-eyed. But there was a lot of energy in the hallway, and she just couldn’t get over the edge into sleep.

As the organ prelude began to wind down, I told L, “Just give me the baby. You’ve got to go sing that gorgeous solo. We can’t start without that.” So L put her restless daughter in my arms and I threw a blanket over E’s to try to reduce her visual stimuli.

I found my place in the line and bounced E in my arms (that always worked with GForce, before she got to be six feet tall!) Then from the back of the sanctuary, L began to sing that soaring melody, unaccompanied: “Once in Royal David’s city, stood a lowly cattle shed…” By the time she got to the second line of the hymn, her voice hovering over our heads in the hallway, E was limp–sound asleep in my arms.

As the choir began to process in on the second verse, I tweaked that gorgeous tenor line by singing to E, “She came down to earth from heaven…” We sang and processed slowly through the candlelit sanctuary, and the baby slept through the whole thing. I sang my heart out, tears welling up and then spilling over. And as I looked at the congregation, most of the people I saw were also weeping. Afterwards, people asked me if we had staged it, my carrying the baby during the procession. But, in a distillation of one of the messages of the Christmas story, what began as a purely practical solution became an entirely magical moment, and now I can’t hear or sing that song without remembering the weight of slumbering possibility in my arms.

The Infant King (Sing Lullaby)

In the weeks leading up to that same service where I processed carrying the sleeping baby, I made a CD of all the songs we were going to be singing so that I could practice in the car. I had never sung “The Infant King (Sing Lullaby)” before, and I was a little worried because every time I practiced it I couldn’t get through it without crying.

Sing lullaby!
Lullaby baby, now reclining,
Sing lullaby!
Hush, do not wake the Infant King.
Angels are watching, stars are shining
Over the place where he is lying.
Sing lullaby!

So far so good in terms of the lyrics, but the intertwining of the parts is so evocative for me. The first verse is an exquisite set-up for the heartbreak that sneaks up in the second verse. The first verse is such a great musical and lyrical painting of this moment: it’s the wee hours of the middle of the night after I’ve just given birth to GForce, and the nurse has brought her to me, wrapped tighter than a burrito, after they’ve taken her to the nursery to bathe and swaddle her. And it’s just the two of us. She’s sleeping. I’m staring at her. Will I ever sleep again? Do I even care? Look at what I made! Everything’s all “La la la happy happy happy.” And then the second verse comes along like a sucker punch.

Sing lullaby!
Lullaby baby, now a-dozing,
Sing lullaby!
Hush, do not wake the Infant King.
Soon comes the cross, the nails, the piercing,
Then in the grave at last reposing:
Sing lullaby!

The first time we read this through in rehearsal, I thought, “WHAT?! We’re singing THIS on Christmas EVE?? Nails? Piercing? Can’t we celebrate the miracle of birth for more than 30 seconds before we move on to humiliation and execution?” But isn’t that exactly how it is with parenting? Bliss and abject fear intertwine. As soon as you bring a child into your life, you set yourself up for a lifetime of this. It’s maybe the only love affair we have where, if we’re doing it well, we’re getting our hearts broken over and over again. And, perversely, we hope that we get to live for decades with this parental bliss and fear.

Sing lullaby!
Lullaby! is the babe a-waking?
Sing lullaby!
Hush, do not stir the Infant King.
Dreaming of Easter, gladsome morning,
Conquering Death, its bondage breaking:
Sing lullaby!

I love the melody and harmonies of this carol so much that my theological disagreements with the specifics of its lyrics are irrelevant. This carol is the distillation of my journey to becoming a Christian. For me, worrying about whether anything in scripture [f]actually happened is completely missing the point. What matters to me is the arc of these ancient stories. The details don’t have to be factual for the arc to be fundamentally true. Any storyteller worth her or his salt knows this. And the arc of scripture bends toward redeeming Love. Relentlessly.

The arc of this carol is the same as the arc of what it means to me to be both human and Christian: we begin with the wonder of birth (of life, of a dream, of an idea, of hope), to the crushing of dreams that is death (not just physical death, but any humiliation, brutal defeat, exhausted resignation, senseless violence), to the resilience and redemption of Love, which never lets death have the final word. Never.

I’m writing this on Sunday night, after watching President Obama address the community of Newtown, CT, the latest town torn apart by a mass shooting. I’m writing this a week after hearing of the sudden death of a long-time friend, mentor, and colleague of PW’s and mine. I feel “hemmed in by death,” as PW described it to a friend early last week, days before Newtown became shorthand for unspeakable violence and loss.

And yet.

I watched a video Saturday night of one of the parents of a six-year-old girl who was killed in Newtown. Here’s one view of how Love conquers “death, its bondage breaking.” I urge you to watch the entire thing, if you haven’t seen it already.

Connecticut Shooting Tragedy: Robbie Parker | Video – ABC News

I’m going to let the brilliant poet, Christina Rossetti, have the last word here. I couldn’t find a choral rendition of this carol that I liked, so I’m going with Shawn Colvin’s version. That’s like settling for Paradise instead of Nirvana. This carol’s beauty can mask the urgency of its rousing charge. It’s not a lullaby; it’s a commission: Whatever we do, don’t miss any opportunity to testify to Love. There will always be senseless violence and brokenness in the world. There can never be too much Love. Let Love and Beauty be our tokens. May Love and Beauty bloom wherever we are–as plea, gift, and sign.

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.

Love shall be our token,
Love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and [all of us]
Love for plea and gift and sign.