“The Journey of the Magi”

With my wife and two direct heirs and a third-generation unit, I attended a performance this afternoon of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at The Ruth and Nathan Hale Theater in Pleasant Grove — which, I think, will likely soon be rechristened as The Donald J. Trump and The Ruth and Nathan Hale Theater.

I am not now and never have been a fan of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  But the actors did a very fine job, the audience plainly loved the performance, and the 3GU in particular had a great time.

Yesterday, I wrote briefly of Luminaria and Ashton Gardens, which I regard as among the great treasures of Utah Valley and the Wasatch Front.  I also reckon The Ruth at doTERRA among those treasures.  We are greatly privileged to have such excellent and family-friendly live theater here in our midst.

By the way, I failed to mention here yesterday the “Light of the World Garden” at Ashton Gardens and the adjacent “Tree of Life” sculpture garden.  Honestly, I found the brilliant white Tree of Life that stands at the apex of its assemblage of sculptures absolutely stunning against the darkness of the night.  I’ve long had a fascination with the image of the Tree of Life.  We have several artistic renditions of it in our house, including mosaics and carpets from the Middle East.  I’ve published about it on more than one occasion — including here (which will supply at least two further and more substantial references) and in The Tree of Life: From Eden to Eternity, edited by John W. Welch and Donald W. Parry (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship and Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011).

Sometimes, especially (but not only) at Christmastime, my nostalgia for German-speaking Europe — and, especially, for Switzerland and Bavaria and Austria — is very powerful.  In that vein, here’s a fairly schmaltzy rendition of a nineteenth-century German Christmas carol.  It was recorded by the late Peter Alexander, and it has happy personal memories for me.  I still own the vinyl album from which this was taken; I bought it at the end of my mission: “Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling.”

The lyrics to Peter Alexander’s version, however, are completely different from those just below here.  So I share with you another, equally schmaltzy, that actually matches the German words that I’m sharing here:  “Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling.”

Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling,
kling, Glöckchen, kling!
Laßt mich ein, ihr Kinder,
ist so kalt der Winter,
öffnet mir die Türen,
lasst mich nicht erfrieren!
Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling,
kling, Glöckchen, kling!

Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling,
Kling, Glöckchen, kling!
Mädchen, hört, und Bübchen,
macht mir auf das Stübchen,
bring euch viele Gaben,
sollt euch dran erlaben.
Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling,
kling, Glöckchen, kling!

Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling,
kling, Glöckchen, kling!
Hell erglühn die Kerzen,
öffnet mir die Herzen!
Will drin wohnen fröhlich,
frommes Kind, wie selig.
Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling,
kling, Glöckchen, kling!

And here is a more-or-less adequate English translation:

Ring, little bell, ring-aling-aling,
Ring, little bell, ring!
Let me in, you kids,
So cold is the winter,
Open the doors for me,
Don’t let me freeze!
Ring, little bell, ring-aling-aling,
Ring, little bell, ring!

Ring, little bell, ring-aling-aling,
Ring, little bell, ring!
Girls, listen, and boys,
Open up the room for me,
I bring you many gifts,
You should enjoy them!
Ring, little bell, ring-aling-aling,
Ring, little bell, ring!

Ring, little bell, ring-aling-aling,
Ring, little bell, ring!
Brightly glow the candles,
Open your hearts to me!
I want to live there happily,
Devout child, how blessed!
Ring, little bell, ring-aling-aling,
Ring, little bell, ring!

I’ve found T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Journey of the Magi” both moving and thought-provoking since I first encountered it many decades ago.  Please note the reference to the three trees on the horizon, which I take to be a foreshadowing of the three crosses on Calvary, and the allusion to the people at the tavern “dicing for pieces of silver,” which calls to my mind the thirty pieces of silver for which Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus (Matthew 26:15), as well as the Roman soldiers gambling for Jesus’ tunic (at John 19:23-24, Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24, and Luke 23:34; compare Psalm 22:18):

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.