SUBSTACK POST: “Advent and Love” by Micha Boyett, The Slow Way: “There was a mother and man who loved her. There was a baby. The baby was the story God was telling, and that story became a seven-pound human and wailed. His mother cleaned his body with cloth and water, and fed him at her breast. She hoped he would latch on. It took a while. She bled and napped. He napped and cried again. He was God’s story and human. This is how he made a home with us. His making a home with us was love, and that love created a way for peace, hope, and joy.” Micha Boyett is an excellent spiritual writer, and I’m thrilled to learn that she has an Advent book coming out next year!
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CHILDBIRTH PHOTOGRAPHY: “2019 Birth Becomes Her Image Contest Winners” and “2020 IAPBP Competition Winners”: I’ve never birthed a baby or witnessed a live birth, but whenever I see photographs of the process and its outcome, it makes me emotional with joy. Seriously, I tear up as I smile. I don’t know these people, and yet I’m awed and overwhelmed.
Since Christmas is about the BIRTH of Jesus, I find it meaningful to spend some time with childbirth photographs to remind myself how God chose to come to us—through a woman’s birth canal. It’s a wonder that never ceases to amaze me. Although there are a few exceptions, it’s a picture of birth that artists interpreting the Nativity typically don’t want to touch (in part because women’s bodies are still largely taboo, in part because the Catholic Church teaches the birth was quick, painless, and bloodless), and so in the artistic canon, we get mostly clean, calm images of postpartum bliss, not the laborious and messy before. But isn’t that, too, part of the miracle and the glory of Christmas?
The boldface links above are to past Birth Becomes Her and International Association of Professional Birth Photographers competitions. If you have any other recommended compilation sources or favorite childbirth photographers, I’d love to know!
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SONGS:
>> “Love Came Down” by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange: For her 2024 album Winter Light, the British choral composer Joanna Forbes L’Estrange wrote a new setting of this beloved Christmas poem by Christina Rossetti.
>> “Yeshu Thungea Ningla” (On the Day Jesus Was Born) by James Lhomi: Released by Lareso Music, this song was written by James Lhomi, a significant Lhomi Christian musician in Nepal. The Lhomi are a Tibetan people living in India, China, and Nepal. Lhomi is also the name of their language. The song opens, “Let us a sing a sweet song on the day of Christ’s birth, let us rejoice with a joyful heart, for Emmanuel has been born unto us.” [HT: Global Christian Worship]
>> “What a Day It Is” by Evan Thomas Way: Singer-songwriter Evan Thomas Way, cofounder (with Josh White) of the Deeper Well record label, released this song on his 2014 debut album, Only Light. At the time, he was the worship pastor at Door of Hope Church in Portland, Oregon; now he’s an executive pastor there.
>> “Talj, Talj” (Snow, Snow) by Fairuz: The Lebanese singer Fairuz (فيروز,) is one of the most celebrated singers in the Arab world. Born to Christian Maronite and Syriac Orthodox parents, she is now a member of the Greek Orthodox Church. She popularized the Arabic Christmas carol “Talj, Talj” on her 1977 album Christmas Hymns, which you can watch her perform on a television special in the video below (I can’t find the year or name of the show or broadcaster). The lyrics paint a wintry scene of snow falling and hearts flowering, for “there is a baby awake in the cave, and his sweet eyes are full of love.” [HT: Global Christian Worship]
Art & Theology 