caroling

After packing up the cubicle and wiping up the dust bunnies, I took my bag of pine cones home. The campus has quite a few trees and as I walk to and from my office, I pick a few up before the gardeners put them in compost. It's 6 pm and quite dark but find a few more pine cones at the edge of a walk. The Campanille clock tower chimes the time. Lights illumniate its presence on the quiet campus with most of the students now gone on winter break.

Every day the carillonist plays music from the set of 21 bells hanging in the tower. They play this classic Christmas tune I don't recall ever having any words, but has that half step run in the middle. Anyway, it's a delightful song when played by the bells. I decide to enjoy the rest of the song sitting at the steps of the tower, the ones that overlook the Golden Gate, where people admire the sunsets. There is hardly any fog so you can see the pulsing red lights that mark the bridge's towers and the white lights that shine from the road bed, like two wide trees.

Next song is "God Rest You Merry Gentlemen," a singable and recognizable tune. I sing a few of the words, them humm in the middle. I know very very few of the words. It has been a long time since I've sung Christmas Carols. Everywhere I go I'm inundated with Christmas music from the radio, the store music, television, but long has it been since I've actually sung a carol. My lung vibrating, my breath leaving in small clouds. I sing loud enough to hear myself, as if there were too many other people around to hear me. A few students dragging their carry-on bags heading to BART to catch their planes home. Not much more.

After a brief pause, the carillonist plays, "O Holy Night." And I must say that these really are some of my favorite Christmas songs. I've never been much of a Joy to the World or Jingle Bells kind of gal. Oh, but O Holy Night, especially when sung by a rich tenor is just breathtaking. And the line that always gets me, "Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!" You can't sing those lines without digging deep with passion. But what I didn't know were words to the song, til I just looked them up is this:

Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.

o, o, night, o night divine.