No time during the year is more perilous for the progressive church musician than Advent and Christmas! People really want to sing the songs of their childhood — after all, Christmas is all about trying to relive our childhoods, isn’t it? — and yet, those old carols are full of language and images that we would never use during the rest of the year. What to do? One solution is to try some new carols, or at least new words to old carol tunes. Make some new memories…
My spirit shall rejoice in God
Who breaks my chains of guilt and fear;
For God upholds each person’s worth
Throughout the ages of this Earth.
When Christmas comes it brings great joy;
This story of a baby boy;
The birth of life – divine event
That tells us all of God’s intent
To be at one with human life,
In all its beauty, all its strife.
1. Our world cries out to be reborn:
a world of pain, all tossed and torn.
Babies born to mothers
scarce old enough to yet conceive,
like Jesus born to Mary,
so young, so fearful, so naive;
