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11 Pipers Piping

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      I have yet to do a set of these blogposts and have someone know all of the carols I post. I think there might be some sort of award for anyone who did. However, today you get a freebie. I'm sharing one probably everyone has at least heard of and has probably listened to multiple times. 

        I'm sharing this one because I realized something about it for the first time this year which I've never noticed before. I don't know about you, but I have spent a lot of time over the past ten years watching the King's College choir Lessons and Carols services from both present and past decades, as many as I could find on youtube. Often I would watch two or three services a year. This has stood me in very good stead here in Scotland. I know all the British versions to many of the classic Christmas carols which are sung to different tunes in the States. The selections for the carols were always widely varied from year to year, but nothing ever changed: the opening song.

        I've been guilty of skipping it every now and again because not only had I heard it dozens of times, but they always performed it the same way.

         Also, it wasn't the most lyrically rich song in the Christmas repertoire and I had it memorized after the third or fourth time hearing it.

        You get extra points now if you already know to which carol I am referring. 

        It was only this year when I got to be part of a traditional service(the one I referred to yesterday) and sing the song myself that I realized its meaning and importance. 

       We stood there, in a back corner of the drafty stone cathedral. The audience's voices reverberating in the cavernous space. With a choir folder in one hand, a lit candle in the other, and my hair streaming loose behind me, I was praying that the soprano behind me would be very careful with her candle.

      The organist rolled out the opening chord, and the assigned soloist, unaccompanied, began to sing. There was no silencing of the audience, no welcome or thanks for being there. The organ's notes quieted the throng, and as my choir mate sang the opening notes the entire building hushed. You could have heard a pin drop as she sang.

 "Once in Royal David's City,
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her baby,
In a manger for its bed.
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little child."

That's when it hit me, as the colloquialism goes. "Once upon a time..." that's how every story begins. The reason this carol is always sung at the opening of the service, is because a story is being told. People are being reminded what we're celebrating and what we gathered there to sing about. 

"Once, in Royal David's City..." That's how it all began two-thousand years ago.

I could feel my skin prickle with the magnitude of it all as the choir joined the soloist now in harmony.

"He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And his cradle was a stall,
With the poor and mean and lowly,
Lived on earth our Saviour holy."
 
       That, my friends, is the story of Christmas. What better way to kick it off then by a reminder of the ignominious means our Lord took to redeem us.
 
As we began to process, balancing our choir folders, myself making sure I didn't trip on the hem of my dress, now singing verse three with the congregation and organ, I realized that I could never shrug off "Once in Royal David's City" again. It will always be the simple beginning to a great story, one that is told year after year to remind us why we sing at Christmastime. 
 
I shall not scorn to tell that story however simple it may be, and however many more times I hear it told.
 
Will you sing it with me?
      Don't underestimate the power of a simple story, and don't skip it even though you've heard it before. Sometimes it takes a few "listenings" for the message to sink in.
   
              Until tomorrow, my friends!
                               ~ Christianna
 

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1 comments:

Bridgette said...

The closest thing to what you speak of that I have experienced is Duke University's Lessons and Carols. I attended in 2013 and I always listen to the same recording on YouTube it at least once in December. It is where I first heard "Once in David's Royal City". It is beautiful. In recent years, one of their song selections is always suspect though, I think as a nod to Catholics (praising "Queen of Heaven").

December 14, 2021 at 7:04 AM

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