Bishop Paul Colton was in musical mood in his Christmas reflections in St Finbarre’s – The Piano Man, Mama kissing Santa Claus and the Little Drummer Boy
Bishop Paul said: Sitting in a restaurant the other day I was amused at the random shuffle of the song choice: Mama was kissing Santa Claus after Adeste Fideles; and the Little Drummer Boy came hot on the heels of Away in a Manger; and someone tweeted, if God is a God of love why does he allow Mistletoe and Wine on the radio every Christmas?
Early today I was listening again to the 1970s Billy Joel hit (his signature song, in fact) – Piano Man. The song is about a piano player called Bill in a lounge bar. As he’s hammering out the songs on the piano he’s looking around at everyone in the bar: the old man over there – ‘Son, can you play me a memory’ he asks “I’m not sure how it goes, but it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete when I wore a younger man’s clothes.’ There’s John, the bartender – ‘there’s some place that he’d rather be.’ There’s the waitress ‘practicing politics’ as she chats with the customers. Then there’s a businessman ‘ sharing a drink called loneliness and getting slowly stoned.’ With those there are some of the bar’s regulars known well to the pianist: Paul – ‘the real estate novelist, who never had time for a wife’ and Davey the US Navy sailor, the manager who smiles – ‘the crowd is pretty good for a Saturday night.’ They all have one thing in common – they want the pianist to help them forget about life for awhile and so they sing-a-long style to his tune:
Sing us a song, you’re the piano man
Sing us a song tonight,
Well we’re all in the mood for a melody,
And you’ve got us feeling alright.
It could be any of us in that sing-along-lounge sitting near that piano man: with our hopes, any unfilled dreams, our anxieties and concerns – the whole of our humanity. Here we are at another Christmas in far from easy days for many. This is truly a time when, if my pastoral work is anything to go by, we are ‘all in the mood for a melody.’ I remember making representations to a Government minister in a meeting in Spring 2009. ‘I promise you I will sort that out when everything is OK again in two years time.’ But we are still here. We all know the stories and, more important, we know the people whose stories they are. It could be any of us ourselves. I’m sure we all feel that we could do with some brighter days; that it’s our turn be cut some slack; and we would love, for once, to see that proverbial tunnel which supposedly has light at its end. We are all in the mood for a melody.
And in the midst of all that we come here to celebrate Christmas. The wonderful carol services again this year in wonderful melody and in traditional readings have drawn us into the familiar rhythm of the Christmas story, the incarnation of the Word of God, Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus, the star who leads us to himself.
This morning what solace and strength – what good news – can we draw on from the melodies in today’s readings?
More at:
http://churchofirelandcork.com/2011/12/27/bishop-paul-coltons-sermon-on-christmas-day/