Songs of joy, hopes and wishes, gifts of love.
The cycle of the year swings round and we turn our attention to the point on its wheel that marks the day that God assumed human flesh and entered our earthly realm as one of us. In the midst of the living and dying of our everyday world we turn our attention to the moment of renewal and we feel called to take action, to participate, to join in. We sing, we hope and we give.
I wrote “Songs of Joy” sometime near the end of the nineties. It was my first Christmas song, my first approach to this subject as a storyteller, and I wanted to keep it simple. I felt somewhat overwhelmed by the scope of the thing. It’s a story so deep and wide, so rich with nuance and it has layers and layers of meaning, and it’s stuffed full of implications that are spiritual and theological and social and cultural. Whew! I knew I was getting in over my head. Better keep it simple. Better just try to focus on the clear and obvious manifestations of the Advent and Christmas season. How do we experience this festival? What is its impact on our lives? How do we react? What do we want and expect from it? What do we yearn for?
And so I began with—
We sing songs of joy,
and
we express our hopes and wishes,
and
we give gifts of love.
We want peace,
and
we want to bless and be blessed,
and
we want to give of ourselves.
Because Jesus is born and the tired world is stirring.
Turns out, simple can be a powerful thing.
Songs of Joy
words and music © Garrison Doles
from his CD Songmaker’s Christmas
1.
Songs of joy we hopefully sing
Expanding our spirits the season to know
Bells of peace we hopefully ring
Peace for the world, peace for our souls
refrain
Jesus is born and the tired world is stirring
Feeling the chance to at last be renewed
Here the miraculous birth is occurring
Son of a woman by Heaven imbued
2.
Hopes and wishes we fondly express
The season inspires us to newly believe
Blessing each other we also are blessed
Gifts that we give, gifts we receive
repeat refrain
bridge
O the Babe in the manger
This inhospitable place
The innocent Babe in the manger
Blessed with a heavenly grace
The stars have forsaken their order
In favor of one brilliant light
Leading us to Bethlehem
On this holiest night—night of mercy, night of peace
3.
Gifts of love gladly we give
Generous spirits the season imparts
Lives of giving we hope to live
Gifts of ourselves, gifts of our hearts
repeat refrain
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