I am listening to the Christmas music I have scrambled on my I-pod. I never know what will come up next.
At the moment the piece is “White Christmas”. I love the song but this is not my favorite arrangement. As I listened I said to myself, “This guy speaks funny English”. I checked my screen and it turns out it was an opera star singing and my guess is that he might not speak English or if he does it has a marked accent. People can learn to sing in foreign languages that they do not speak.
Have you heard Nat King Cole singing Adeste Fideles? It sounds good to me but I don’t speak Latin. Have you ever heard the Vienna Boys Choir sing Jingle Bells? They are very precise and correct but it is obvious they don’t speak English. I do, so I can tell the difference.
We run into this in life. Have you ever met someone trying to speak Republican and it comes out RINO? They may know the right words and talking points but there is something off in how they present it. I love to ask people if they are liberals. I personally have not had any just come out and admit it. They know that the title is loaded with baggage so they avoid it. It still doesn’t take long to know their heart.
In the same way those of us who know Jesus can often tell that some people trying to talk Christian have something about their accent that just doesn’t sound right. They may have all the vowels and verbs but they put the accent on the wrong syllable or some such thing. I am not talking about how some Texans make “oil” into a three syllable word. I am talking about how Xians need to take a full paragraph to explain why they can’t simply answer “yes” or “no” to a simple question like, “Are you born again?” or “Do you believe the Bible is truth?”
So rejoice in Advent season with the Christmas music playing. Much is totally secular but beautiful. Some is on the level of “Grandma God Run Over by a Reindeer”. Others touch heaven like “Joy to the World” when it tell us “No more let sin and sorrow grow”.
Merry Christmas, or for you Grinches out there, Happy December.
homo unius libri
Despite not believing in Christmas, per se, I say "Merry Christmas" anyway, simply because it's not Christmas the PC folks are against, but Christianity in general. I guess you could say that I sort of support a holiday I disagree with just to spite the heathens. How do you like MY "Christmas spirit?" - LOL (Merry Christmas, Pumice) - HO! HO! HO! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI have learned to live with it. You need to be encouraged because sometimes you manage to hit the nail instead of just dent the wood.
DeleteGrace and peace.