The Song of the Poor Shepherds: An Advent Hymn

Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard van Honthorst

Poetry is something I usually don't touch with a ten-foot pole. Personally, I think writing a novel is easier than writing a poem and I've never been good at brevity in my writing. However, every now and then I feel inspired to write a poem and then I work away at it until I'm happy with every word and every placement of those words on a page. I get caught up in imagery and symbolism and somewhere at the end of it all, a poem emerges. My first attempt---a poem celebrating the conversion of St. Maria Goretti's murderer, Alessandro, entitled "Alessandro's Ascent"---was kindly published a few years ago in the wonderful Catholic literary journal, Dappled Things, which (by the way), is greatly in need of financial support if it's going to continue to be published next year.

A couple of weeks ago, while on retreat, I felt that creative stirring again as I sat at a frosted window looking at an intensely blue sky and puffs of white steam rising from nearby houses like incense rising to God. Birds tumbled around the sky, completely oblivious to the cold. From the warmth of my room, I started to think about the "pregnant pause" of the Advent season, the long waiting in the cold for the world's Gift, and the image of the sky and the birds started to intermingle into the first lines of a poem. From there, my imagination leapt back 2000 years to the shepherds who were surprised by the unexpected news of a Messiah born in a manger.

Perhaps it was my recent viewing of the wonderful movie, Jesus of Nazareth, which made me feel such an affinity with these poor men and boys who tripped their way to Bethlehem to see this wondrous thing! In the movie, when the shepherds enter the cave, they're chastised by a bossy old woman whose come in to see to the couple with the new baby. The shepherds, who've come such a distance, stand transfixed at the door, unsure what to do, and obviously feeling the shame of their appearances and their presences in this place. It's as if, in that moment, they are no longer standing in the door way of a soddy, musty cave, but at the entrance of a palace. Only when they tell what they have seen on the hill, does the busy-body move aside and the shepherds sidle in, sheepishly (pun definitely intended!), and worship the baby Jesus. All of these images were swirling around in my mind and the end result was this little Advent meditation called "The Song of the Poor Shepherds"---a song which is, I think, close to all our hearts, whether we realize it or not: the deep-down desire for God. This poem is no masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it's about as rough around the edges as the shepherds themselves were. Nevertheless, I do hope you'll enjoy it!

The Song of the Poor Shepherds: An Advent Hymn

By Heather K. Thompson

December 2010

Beneath this sky of azure blue---

Amidst the song of the birds’ tra-la---
Figures move in expectation,

Wayward hearts in celebration,

Voices blend in adoration.

God is drawing nigh.

On a hill near Bethlehem---

Dotted with the least of men---

Angels split the sky to sing,

“Darkness now has taken wing;

Hasten, then, your joy to ring.

God is drawing nigh!”

Listen as their feet go pounding---

T’wards the wish they dared not dream of---

“Can this thing be but illusion?

Lord, my heart is all confusion.

They said flesh was your solution!

God is drawing nigh?”

Panting, craning at the door---

Cold and stench and a baby’s cry---

Yet the air’s like weighted gold here,

And our breath in wonder hold. Sheer

Child divine in human mould. Clear,

God has now drawn nigh!

Beneath this sky of azure blue---

Advent expectations mount---

Wretched Man in sorrow pining,

On the Heart of Heart’s reclining,

Heavenward, our prayers go sighing.

God has now drawn nigh.



Caedmon Tutorials

Blogging is a bit of a lonely world, I'm discovering. I suppose somewhere in a portion of my brain, I thought doing this might make a difference in somebody's day---I just forgot that that person might only be me. The desire to connect my life with others'---that's at the heart of this insatiable desire to write, write, write. There's no instant gratification for the beginning blogger. It does really just boil down to slogging through a post, getting out all those pent-up ideas, realizing that I need this more than anyone. Why is it so important to share oneself with others? I guess it goes back to humans being social creatures and all that. I've always been the kind of person who doesn't mind her own company....But sometimes---often---I need the others. I think I'm coming to that more and more as the years go by.

Well, here's yet another way I propose to make connections: This month, I launch my online English Literature Tutorial service, Caedmon Tutorials. Reading, writing, and thinking: these are all activities which one can very happily do all alone. But my tutorials seek to bring people together to talk about great books, to contemplate what they mean and how they apply to our own lives. I'm so excited about this new venture! It seems to connect in one package all the things I care about so much: faith, writing, books, people, education, innovation, sharing, creativity....

I have to realize that it may take a while to catch on. The idea of schooling via the internet is still relatively new. For me too. How to reproduce a classroom atmosphere on the computer? It'll be a challenge, for sure, but I love new challenges and am eager to get this one started. It's been a wonder just planning the courses and I look forward to posting the syllabus soon.  Just thinking about some of the authors and works I'd like to introduce has got me enthused: Tolkien, Lewis, all those wonderful unknowns of the Medieval period!

If you haven't checked out http://www.caedmontutorials.com/ yet, I invite you to do so! I hope you'll join me on these explorations of life-changing literature. By the way, I'm thinking of starting an online book discussion via this blog in August. I've been meaning to re-read the Narnia  books. I'll start posting my thoughts in August and hope you'll join in and share your own with me as I go along.

Introducing Quills and Candles

It is fast becoming apparent that blogging is an addiction. Last night, I decided to start a second blog, this one all about being a writer. I needed somewhere to ruminate on what feels like a necessary act: the urge to write. I'm currently working on editing my novel, The Company of the White Stag (for the upteenth time), as well as working on a children's story, "Jacob and the Winter Boots," for my Institute of Children's Literature assignment. You'd think I had enough writing projects to work on. But, the more I write, the more I need to reflect on why I'm doing it. "Reflect." I never heard the word used as much as over the past year of Teacher's College. My colleagues and I reflected until we were blue in the face, until the word started to feel like sawdust in our mouths. And yet, here I am, one month after my final practicum ready, once again, to reflect. My new blog, Quills and Candles, will probably also turn into a place to retreat when I want to throw my manuscript out the window or withdraw from the Institute altogether. I'm hoping it will also, eventually, become a virtual community of Christian writers sharing ideas on the vocation of writing and the joys of being a sub-creator.

Jaunting and Rambling

As I sit down to write my very first blog post, I can't help but wonder who else, but me, would care to read about my jauntings and ramblings? I'm completely new to the world of blogging. I've never really been the kind of person who cared what was going on in other peoples' lives---at least not to the extent that I would want to follow their musings each day via a social networking tool. I care about one-on-one exchanges, individual lives, that sort of thing....Here, on cyberspace, I am about to become exposed to the world....A world, frankly, which has so much else to do than care that Heather is currently very excited about starting up an online tutorial service, or that I've been asked to make a double baby-shower cake for next week, or that I'm finally making headway on C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, or that I just graduated from Teacher's College....

And yet, the need to write about it all---these little pieces which make up a, wholly, insignificant (or, I should say, simple) life---is irresistable. I have my former writing partner, Tamara, to thank for encouraging me to do this. Tamara said that every writer needs a blogspot. I was shocked, amused, horrified....What? Another thing I "have" to do! But I have all this time on my hands at the moment, so I wrote down "start a blog" on my Spring-Summer To-Do List and so here I am about to embark on detailing my jaunts and rambles. Will anyone else care to know? Probably not...At least not companies in droves. I suspect my family and a few friends may, out of kindness, take a peek---because those are the kinds of people God has seen fit to bless me with: the kind who care about what I'm doing (and Heaven knows, I've always got something up my sleeve!). I suspect I will enjoy reading back on these notes every now and then as a way to recollect where I have been, what I have come to, and what things fascinated me at any given time. Basically, this is a dream-blog, meaning that I wish to write here about all the things that make me insanely glad to be human and alive!

My friend, Cathy, and I were talking it over in the Gatineau Hills some weeks ago. We were musing about the need for good news, about the way we both felt we needed to familiarize ourselves with what's going on "out there" but at the same time feeling deflated in the attempt. Right now, if I were to turn the t.v. on or thumb through a newspaper, I would find something about the oil spills, about a suicide bomber, about some murder, about the rising tide of abortions and same sex-marriage legislation....But what about all the glorious stuff! You know! The fact that it's Springtime and rainy outside. The fact that nothing cures any ailment better than a cup of tea (preferably enjoyed by the pot-ful from little cups that require you to stick up your pinky to enjoy it). The fact that, last weekend, a deacon and his wife traversed our home and blessed it and that we crowned Jesus "King of our Home." The fact that I'm learning, for the first time, about the wonders of Classical Education (how on earth did I ever get to be 30 without exploring this approach to education?). The fact that out of my tiny brain is growing this amazing novel which, although it has far to go to be worth reading by anyone but me, is becoming something beautiful by diligent work. The fact that a woman I don't know took the time to write to me this morning (a very lengthy email) in response to my query about starting a tutorial service. The fact that my friends, Rebecca and Renata, joined me on Monday to inaugurate our encyclical study on Pope Benedict's letter, Deus Caritas Est. The fact that my brother---who is a paragon of health---is doing such an amazing job leading a bootcamp and I've had the pleasure of being part of it....Oh, the list goes ever on and on....

So, these are the things I'm going to write about, as much for my own sanity as for anyone else's. This is to be a sort of catalogue of wondrous things: the big and the small. Too often to do we go about completely unaware of the things which daily brush up against our lives, which enrich and enliven us. This year, for me, has been (and continues to be) all about clarification, clarity, illumination....light flooding in. Knowing. Seeing things as they are. Seeing with God's eyes. I suspect reflecting on the things which make my heart luminous will help shed a bit more light on my own path. Maybe on yours too?