December 3, 2006
Happy New Year All,
As many of you are aware, today is the first day of advent. My pastoral wife had sermon duty today and did an amazing job of declaring the counter cultural nature of advent and framing the coming of the Christ child as a revolution – enough of the shmaltz for sale at walmart and christian bookstores – this is the time for the world to turn – for the poor to be lifted up and the rich to be brought down. Although she was more tasteful and appropriate then what I just wrote, she did have a killer ending. “It’s advent, let the revolution begin” Yeah! It was great, I got home and put on Steve Earle’s ‘the revolution starts now’ and then I remembered a song from Jason Moran and I’s first CD called Emmanuel, so here it is for you to download, and here are the lyrics. It was written in Northern Ghana while visiting my parents in 1999.
MP3: Emmanuel
The air is full of restlesness, the people here are full
Oh God come here and be with us
Emmanuel
I need a light to see my way, I need a hope eternal
Oh God could you come back today
Emmanuel
The sky has been dry for nine months, coming, still we, dance for the rain to the drone of the drumming, the kicking up of dust sends a signal to the wind, a cue to the clouds that it’s time to begin
the voice of the people is a stranger to my ear, silent as if covored by a blanket of fear, crammed between the gears of a system that has failed in a storm of injustice compassion hits like hail
All you beggars like prophets proclaim the need for redemption in this burning age, with the money at the top and a blind eye looking down, it’s no wonder that my soul is as parched as the ground
So there you have it, advent, viva la revolution, nate