Make Your House Fair as You are Able
by Melanie Bettinelli on December 23, 2011
One of my current favorite Advent/Christmas songs is People, Look East. I’ve been trying to learn all the words and so have been singing it over and over and over again.
The funny thing is I used to think it was a dumb song because all I heard were the final lines of each stanza: “Love, the Bird, is on the way” etc. Sappy and silly, I thought. But then I started paying attention to the actual verses. Here, I’ll just give you the whole song:
1. People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.2. Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower may flourish.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the rose, is on the way.3. Birds, though you long have ceased to build,
Guard the nest that must be filled.
Even the hour when wings are frozen
God for fledging time has chosen.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the bird, is on the way.4. Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim
One more light the bowl shall brim,
Shining beyond the frosty weather,
Bright as sun and moon together.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the star, is on the way.5. Angels, announce with shouts of mirth
Christ who brings new life to earth.
Set every peak and valley humming
With the word, the Lord is coming.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the Lord, is on the way.
I may still think that “Love, the bird” sounds a bit silly; but I choke up every time I come to the lines “Birds, though you long have ceased to build, / Guard the nest that must be filled. / Even the hour when wings are frozen / God for fledging time has chosen.”
Likewise, I get a bit teary with the lines about the furrows giving of their strength to nourish the seed in the season of bare earth.
Right now my heart feels like a rather cold, bare place. It’s kind of hard to imagine a great Love flourishing there. But I have experience—four times now—with the way life can cling tenaciously, growing even when I feel sick and empty.
The thing about motherhood is that it is about death to self. Dying over and over and over again. And those deaths aren’t always pretty. Growth hurts. As Eliot points out so eloquently in The Wasteland, April is cruel because new life, new growth is uncomfortable. We’d rather sleep snug, hibernate in a cave. We fear the change, the radical conversion that Christ calls us to. And so time and again I find that Advent is a time when I realize how very poor my offering is.
The song says “Make your house fair as you are able”. This year, once again, I don’t feel very able. Four kids who are a net drain on my ability to keep a neat house, to plan for special baking and crafting and decorating and really anything beyond just getting through the basics of day to day living. Sure, we’ve got a tree and some decorations. But the house is the usual mess and chaos it always is. The floors haven’t been vacuumed since right after we brought the tree home last Monday and somehow I feel those dirty floors are emblematic of both the state of my soul and the human condition into which the Christ child came. He was born in a stable. The floors there were doubtless much less clean than my floors here. He was born to save us from ourselves. If we were able to prepare a fit home on our own, then we wouldn’t need him. The lesson of Advent this year and perhaps every year is exactly how much I need Him.
Once I’ve done my feeble best to prepare a space where such a mighty Guest may come, I then wait for Him to get down to the real business of house cleaning, which was his ultimate purpose in coming.
Come, Lord Jesus, do not delay. The world groans in expectation and sighs in anticipation, longing for the freedom which only you can bring.
I can’t find a really great video, but this one isn’t too bad.
Comments
I love “People, Look East” too. I think the reason I like it is that it is truly an Advent song, but it has the cadence, melody and spirit of a
Christmas carol. I classify it with “O Come Divine Messiah,” another “Advent carol.”
Posted by Bearing on 12/24/11 at 10:19 AM
I think that is one of those carols I’ve sung once a year and so it “rings a bell” but I don’t really know it. Now you’ve got me curious about it. Thanks for the beautiful reflection.
I know exactly where you are coming from with 4 little ones. In the challenges, you have my sympathetic camaraderie. Likewise, I hope 2012 is a bit easier.
Merry Christmas!!!
Posted by Katherine on 12/24/11 at 12:58 PM
“...those dirty floors are emblematic of both the state of my soul”...this caught my eye after my confession disaster last evening. After a tiny date dinner, my husband and I headed over to our parish for our last chance at a Christmas confession…it was the last session being offered. I was trying hard to be sorrowful in my confession explaining my busy-ness during the season and how I seem to be very distracted and not focused on living. I find myself more in teaching mode since we homeschool rather than living the season of Advent. Ugh! All of a sudden my phone rang…I forgot to turn it off or at least silence the ringer.:( In our rush and happiness of our date dinner, I just forgot that little detail. The priest was distracted, I was distracted….I thought it was a confessional flop! I thought that ringing phone was indicative of my distracted, constantly interrupted life of motherhood. I was in tears after telling my husband about it and saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. He hugged me so tight and told me, “That is what God wants to do with you…you little imperfect soul!” Merry Christmas! I’m sure God came to save all of us especially the mothers!
Posted by Grace on 12/24/11 at 01:56 PM
Melanie, sometimes that dying to self includes a very painful dying to our ideas about ourselves, a kind of vanity we can’t afford as mothers. When I was first married, I had a friend who embodied everything I thought I would be as a mother. Wrong. I turned out to have much less energy, stick-to-it-ness, coping ability, etc. It was humbling to realize that I was going to have to settle for being less than I had expected of myself. Now, many years later, I am still not as competent as I’d like to be, but my children are turning out pretty well, and even their flaws are things I can’t take responsibility for in all instances. And I still think much less of myself - in a good way - than I once did.
Thank you for your blog, and merry Christmas! Enjoy your children, as I will very much enjoy mine tomorrow, and may God bless your family.
Posted by scotch meg on 12/24/11 at 03:57 PM
This is another of my favorites, and this year I resorted to your idea of taping the lyrics to my cupboard and finally got them memorized.
...then I found out the hard way that our choir uses subtly different words.
This isn’t a song that chokes me up though. It’s encouraging in a way I can’t really describe, but a cup of coffee when I need it most comes closest.
Merry Christmas to you and yours including your messy floors!
Posted by GeekLady on 12/25/11 at 01:49 AM
This part, “The lesson of Advent this year and perhaps every year is exactly how much I need Him” stopped me in my tracks. A good part of this year was devoted to God showing me this lesson. And it is painful to learn (and re-learn!) Thanks for this.
p.s. I have to tell you what a pleasure it is to use your captcha!
Posted by nancyo on 01/8/12 at 10:57 PM