There’s A Way; There’s A Voice

Darkness and snow descend;
The clock on the mantlepiece
Has nothing to recommend
Nor does the face in the glass
Appear any nobler than our own

With these words, WH Auden opens his poem, “For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio.” They are striking words, in part because they are unexpected; in part because they are true.

Darkness and snow descend…

The days are growing shorter and sharper, with the sting of impending snow it in the air. People dash around the sidewalk, anxious to get out of the cold, and anxious to get to the next item on their checklist: a class, a meeting, a date with the undertaker. They do not stop to say hello. They do not lift their heads. They do not linger.

As the ice curls around my windowpane, I feel the impending weight of evil upon me, like a fur coat I neither asked for nor wanted.

The clock on the mantlepiece has nothing to recommend…

There’s no time. Everything is harried; everything is rushed. I no longer take joy in doing good work because no work seems good. There is only endless hour after hour like those games of Monopoly I used to play when I was a child. The adults swindled me out of Boardwalk, other adults yelled at them for it, and I sat there, board stiff and sad. I don’t remember these games beginning or ending, just the feeling of being trapped in the ceaseless roll of dice and greed.

Nor does the face in the glass appear any nobler than our own…

I catch sight of her sometimes, as I dash across streets with big shop windows. The girl that everyone else sees. She looks tired. Sometimes I try to smile at her, and when she smiles back it seems more like a grimace.

Nobody else is smiling either. Thinkers I admire have flaws. Singers miss notes. Mentors turn out to be human, just like me. Pedestals crash and fall, splintering into a thousand shards of Plaster-of-Paris on the sidewalk, covering my toes in ruined dreams.

The girl in the window? She should cut her hair and find a better shade of lipstick.

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One night, after a choir rehearsal for an upcoming concert, I wind up on the floor against a book shelf reading Auden’s words. They fit my mood. The rehearsal was necessary, but that does not mean it was enjoyable. I spent most of it staring out the window at thickly falling snow and trying to keep the shrill sound of panicked instructions from making my head throb. I largely failed.

Now I am here, the spine of Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again digging into my back. I should be sleeping, but my mind won’t still enough to allow the luxury.

So I read Auden instead. I read about the time before Christ. What the world was like when he wasn’t a part of it. I read about evil coming closer and generals dying of drunkenness. Of houses that smell like fear and lanterns that have gone out. Reading poetry isn’t quite like reading anything else. There are no dead generals or empty lanterns in my life. But there is something akin to them, for I too, live in a world where God isn’t fully present. I have my own version: trusted friends who have failed me and light bulbs I haven’t gotten around to replacing yet.

Auden weaves these together, and worse. On and on the poem goes. Across every page should be stamped: THERE IS NO HOPE.

Then, miraculously, the Christ child is born. And we get these words:

Let number and weight rejoice
In this hour of their translation
Into conscious happiness:
For the whole in every part,
The truth at the proper centre
(There’s a Way. There’s a Voice.)

Over and over again, Auden create these pairs.

“The even the great rejoice…(There’s a Way. There’s a Voice)”

“Let even the small rejoice…(There’s a Way. There’s a Voice)”

“Let even the young rejoice…(There’s a Way. There’s a Voice)”

“Let even the old rejoice….(There’s a Way. There’s a Voice)”

I love the parenthesis. It’s as if the speakers are afraid to say it. Afraid to believe it’s true. Afraid to hope that the world they’ve known for so long might change. I imagine it like the old Easter tradition of the church, where the phrase, “Christ is risen!” is said three times, first as a whisper, then as a remark, then as a shout of joy.

There, against the bookshelf with You Can’t Go Home Again digging into my spine, I feel wetness begin to seep down my cheeks. Suddenly, I understand the point of Christmas. Let choir directors panic. Let the fur coat settle and reflections appear bleak. Let pedestals shatter and clocks rush on. The Christ child is coming. And when he comes, he will set all things to right.

The world is not hopeless. There’s a Way. There’s a Voice.