Derek: 00:27

Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. So my family just watched the movie, I think it's called The Christmas Bells the other night, and it was it was a really beautiful movie. It was a movie that I wasn't expecting to really enjoy all that much because it's it's, not Hollywood based. It's more like theatrical. I think this, this company up in Pennsylvania that I grew up around and and went to some of their productions, called Sight and Sound, They, I think, put on this, this movie.

Derek: 00:59

And so I was kind of skeptical. I don't, I don't usually like plays, theatrical plays that are turned into movies. But this one, about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's life, and particularly the portion of his life centered around, this poem, The Christmas Bells, it was a really beautiful movie. So for those who might be unfamiliar with, Longfellow and this poem in particular, it's, it's a really tragic time in Longfellow's life. And he's been this great, wonderful poet who's had this magnificent inspiration in his life.

Derek: 01:34

And then his wife, one of his primary inspirations, she dies in the tragic fire. And so he is, he is in a depressed state. The nation goes into civil war, his son, against Longfellow's wishes, joins the army to fight in the civil war. And so, and then his son gets, severely injured, and and they even think he's going to die. And so there there is just this questioning of God, of life, of hope, of all of these things.

Derek: 02:05

And it's, it's in that portion of Longfellow's life that he writes this beautiful, beautiful poem called Christmas Bells, which I strongly recommend that you go pause the episode and go read it now, because I'm going to reference it quite a lot. But before I really get into the poem and kind of dissecting it just a little bit, one of the things that I was reminded of, from reading the poem and from watching about Longfellow's story was, just the hope that Longfellow had in God and, and in the church. Right? Because the, the bells that are ringing are the church bells, which promise peace. So, while I am somebody who loves the church and values the church, and in fact, my current job is, you know, the title is church planter.

Derek: 02:58

Right? I'm going, over to Romania and seeking to help churches grow, to plant churches. I strongly value the church. But, you know, as I look at the world stage, particularly, I mean, world history, if you've listened to this season on propaganda or my season on government, I'm very skeptical of Christianity in terms of its power mongering and the evil, great evil that it has done throughout the world, Christendom, as I would distinguish it from the church. And especially as I think right now of the conflict in Palestine and Israel, and I think of the church in relation to that, especially the church in the United States, this dispensationalist church that, you know, is willing to allow all sorts of injustices, will support Israel no matter what they're doing, because, you know, they think that God must want that, and we have to usher in Jesus coming back or something like that.

Derek: 03:59

It's just, it's just sickening. And so I was thinking a lot about, about that, and with, with Wadsworth Longfellow's, with his Christmas bells poem, you have a it's written in the context of a war and this war that, is thought to bring peace because it's, in large part seeking to free the insight. There's this promise of peace through the assertion of power. It reminded me of another, I guess he's probably contemporary with, Longfellow or at least close to the same time, but Mark Twain. He's got a wonderful short story, I guess, called The War Prayer.

Derek: 04:49

And, in The War Prayer, Twain, you know, shows all these imperialists who are, you know, praying to God for victory in their war. And then at the end of the story, he has this wise old man who says, hey, let me tell you what you're really praying for. And this old man prays and says, I hope that their wives are bereaved, and I hope that their children are slain in the streets, you know, things like that. And he said, look, if you want to, if you want to keep praying for what you're praying for, for this war, you go ahead and do it, but know what you're really praying for. And at the end of the book, you know, Twain and his cynicism was like, and they all said, man, what a crazy dude, and just dismissed what the man said because they didn't want to see truth.

Derek: 05:37

They were caught up in their religious and nationalistic fervor, which are so often one and the same. So, as I was thinking about, Christmas bells in the context of the civil war, and this idea of peace, as I was thinking about Palestine and just the horrible tragedy that's going on there right now, I I was thinking about this war prayer, this, these war drums, the beating of the war drums, and then this irony that this Christmas there is conflict in Bethlehem, which isn't, you know, Gaza per se, but, you know, it it's Palestine, and and there are effects in the West Bank as well that are are coming from this, as everybody's looking at Gaza. Israel is is, ramping up the the horrors of what they're doing, with with the settlers in the West Bank as well. And so Bethlehem, if not as directly as Gaza, is under, oppressive rule or threat this Christmas. And so to think about Christendom's promise of power, and to think about that in relation to Christ as the Prince of Peace, and even reading some of the, I'll link this in the show notes, but, the Palestinians having these these letters that are coming out and how they're declaring that the look, the even the Christian community here in Palestine is largely nonviolent.

Derek: 07:10

The quote from this paper that they wrote says, quote, although many Christians in the West do not have a problem with the theological legitimization of war, the vast majority of Palestinian Christians do not condone violence, not even by the powerless and occupied. Instead, Palestinian Christians are fully committed to the way of Jesus in creative nonviolent resistance, which uses the logic of love and draws on all energies to make peace. Crucially, we reject all theologies and interpretations that legitimize the wars of the powerful. We strongly urge Western Christians to come alongside us in this, end quote. And this podcast has explored quite a lot about this, this way that, a lot of Christians in Christendom have thrown off Christ's teachings and embraced violence, and how so often we do this for our own selfish ambitions.

Derek: 08:03

We do it for today, especially for nationalism and power. So for this episode, I want to share with you a rewriting that I did of Longfellow's, Christmas Bells. And, I rewrote it with trying to kind of keep the same sort of structure and concept, but I did change it up just a little bit. So I do want to evaluate the poem after I read it. But before I do that, I want to just tell you a few structural elements to look out for.

Derek: 08:38

First of all, I kept the same rhyme scheme. So AA B B C is essentially the way that it works. And also, if you if you read, Christmas Bell's poem, there is he, in terms of his syllables, he does 88448. I kept that with 2 exceptions. So in Longfellow's poem, his second stanza, where he he, uses the phrase, unbroken song, I don't know if he purposefully did this.

Derek: 09:09

The rest of his poem is so structured that it seems like he must have. But that's the only line that, kind of, breaks, breaks the structure where, it actually goes 88458 instead of keeping the 44. And it makes me think when he uses the word unbroken, it's almost like, oh, that's kind of like a play on the meter there. Like, when you're, when you're changing it up to show that you just broke, broke the stanza, broke the structure, using the word unbroken. So I thought that was really creative.

Derek: 09:43

So what I did is, I kept that 88448, except, because most of the poem I'm going to read is talking about Christendom, which I think is broken. I'm actually going to use the 88458 structure for the vast majority of the poem. And then on the, on the stanzas where I talk about, the true peace of the church and things, I will use the, the rhyme scheme that sounds more fluid, the 88448. And I think, that that you'll be able to hear it because you'll be like, if you would have just removed that word or added that word, it would have been so much more fluid. And I think that's that's kind of why I wanted to do the, you know, the the broken meter, the broken structure, because it should sound a little bit off because I'm talking about something that is very much off.

Derek: 10:37

So anyway, here is my rendition, my rewriting of Christmas Bells, and I entitle it Christmas Drums. I heard the drums on Christmas day, Cacophness, tympanic display. Their noise and treats with ideal replete. Of peace to us and death to them. I thought of how this day once came.

Derek: 11:03

The son of God in Manger Lane. To show the world God's love unfurled, of peace on earth, goodwill to men. Till bumping, thumping, drums of old, called Christendom to caracol, promise of ease with no bended knees, For peace to us and death to them. From the darkness of those ages, sloughed examples, broken pages, power was gained, and so was our fame. Now peace to us and death to them.

Derek: 11:32

'Twas as if God ne'er had spoken, had not lived out in the open. His will repined, his peace redefined, as peace to us and death to them. In triumph, then, we raised our heads. There is now peace on earth, we said. For we have strength, go to any length, for peace to us and death to them.

Derek: 11:55

Then thumped the drums more loud and deep. God is not dead. He is asleep. In a manger, where lies danger. Our peace on earth in Bethlehem.

Derek: 12:08

Alright. So in, in the first stanza, I, you know, I use this concept of drums, which, is supposed to indicate, like, the war drums, you know, you, you've got that that's a common ideology, you know, the beating of the war drums, and this idea that I put in there. So instead of the church bells, we've got war drums that the church is responding to. In the second stanza, I use the term love unfurled. And when you think of the word unfurled, like if you, if you look that up in general, you tend to think of flags when you think of unfurling something.

Derek: 12:50

And so I put that imagery in there, because love unfurled is representative of the Kingdom of Christ. Right? That is how Christ rules in His Kingdom. That's the banner that He flies. And so the, the original, stanza 2 was about Christendom.

Derek: 13:09

And so I kept that in here by, talking about kingdoms, like the true kingdom of Christ. And so I actually contrast that here a little bit. In Stanza 3, I use the, the, idea of this Christendom's caracole. And, a caracole is just like a turning of a horse. So if a rider caracoles, with their horse, they are just turning, you know, to the right or the left or whatever.

Derek: 13:37

And so there, I'm referencing this deviation of, of that Christendom has from the way of Christ. In the 3rd, I'm sorry. And the, I also talk in the 3rd stanza about this, you know, no bended knees, which is the idea that, you know, we are not going to submit to Christ, first of all, but also in another sense, we are not going to bow the knee because, we are going to be in the position of power where we expect other people to bow to us. And that's what Christendom, that's what Empire does. In Stanza 4, you know, I talk about God speaking to us.

Derek: 14:20

Right? He spoke to us through, example, and He also spoke to us through, through pages. Right? So I talk about how we sluffed the example that he gave us and how we have broken pages. And actually, in the written form, I use the word p a I g e s just to you know, because everybody would think broken pages and in terms of communication and writing, and I wanted that intent there too.

Derek: 14:54

But I also used p a I g e s because, we, as pages to Christ, right, sort of apprentices to Christ, we ourselves are broken because we have sloughed the example and because we've broken, his word, his written word, and we we don't listen to that. We therefore are also broken pages, broken apprentices. So there's a threefold meaning from those two concepts that I list out there. And then of course, I talk about in stanza 4 how we redefine peace. And that's something that, we talk about a lot here, you know, at the end of episodes, when I say, peace, and then because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it.

Derek: 15:35

That's all basically this idea here, which is that, you people who want to go out and kill others and are calling for the deaths of Palestinians, and you're not calling for cease fires after kids are getting murdered, you know, that that's your definition of peace. That's what you're saying brings peace. And, I just I, hands down, disagree that that is peace. I think you've redefined what peace is and call it peace, and it's really not. Stanza, 5, if you compare this to Longfellow's poem, right, he says, he comes to a place of despair where he says, there is no peace on earth, I said.

Derek: 16:22

And here, I'm I'm saying the opposite, you know, Christendom is like, hey, finally, we did it. We established the the peace that Christ himself couldn't even do. Right? We established it. Right?

Derek: 16:32

There's peace on Earth because we're in power, and so it's a it's a direct contrast to Longfellow there. And then, finally, in Stanza 6 it's probably the stanza that I I don't want to say I like the least from this poem in Longfellow's, but, you know, he just says, you know, then the bells rang louder and deeper, and he said, God isn't dead, or and he doesn't sleep because the wrong is gonna fail, and the right is gonna prevail. It's just a bald assertion there, which I agree with that assertion, but it it's just it seems very unsatisfying, you know, to ground your hope in this this future thing that seems so unreal, like, at a moment, like, the civil war. And in regard to Israel Palestine, you know, that's actually one of the things that I I despise, is this grounding of of current action in the future, and and so that's the these, dispensationalists who lots of issues with dispensationalism in general, but putting all those aside, this idea of dispensationalism that, well, you know, Israel needs to come back and be a nation and all that stuff before, you know, so that Jesus can come back and so therefore, we're gonna support Israel in everything.

Derek: 17:53

And because they think that the future is is a particular way, they think that therefore, they can morally justify anything they do just about to make that future come about, which reminds me exactly of, you know, Sarah and Abraham. What did Abraham do when God promised him this future and Abraham's like, well, you know, God wants this future then I'm going to bring it about how I must. I'll lie about Sarah being my wife or sister so I can preserve my life because, you know, God needs me to accomplish this or I'll sleep with my I'll force my my servant to sleep with me, have a kid with her, he does all these things to try to bring about God's will and he ends up screwing things up because he's instead of trusting God, that doesn't show a trusting God that shows, a trust in self and and looking to self. So for my version of the poem, I am grounding my hope not in, a bold assertion about what the future might bring or might be, and instead, I am grounding it in something that was shown to be, in a way that has has proven to be true, you know, in in the last poem, I say, you know, God's not dead, that's true, but he he is asleep.

Derek: 19:13

And then I point to Jesus in the manger, you know, where God laid down his divinity or not his divinity, but, you know, Jesus didn't didn't see becoming like God as something to be grasped. But, right, he didn't grasp at that power, but he laid that power down. Philippians 2, kenosis, all that stuff. And so it's in a manger where we find our hope and our example to do what's right. How can the Palestinian Christians say that they don't justify violence even by the powerless?

Derek: 19:44

They can say that because of an example from the past, not this promise of the future that they can use to justify whatever actions they wanna take to try to to grasp at the power they think that they need. And so that that peace, that true peace, that true hope came to a manger in Bethlehem, where the Empire sought his life. And it's quite ironic and tragic and all of that, that in Bethlehem right now, similar circumstances are, are going on all around. If not, like I said, if not as bad as in in Gaza as it is in, in Bethlehem as it is in Gaza, nevertheless, still, you know, there's there's been impression for a long time and there's there's always that threat. So right now, the empire that I'm a part of, the United States, and Christendom at the helm, we are fanning the flames of empire of, of violence, of destruction, and we are calling that peace because, rather than listening to the church bells and recognizing their connection to a savior of peace, to a savior of loneliness, we hear the war drums and we think that that is our hope.

Derek: 21:12

So I hope I did not do injustice to the great Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Again, I appreciate the movie that they made about him and his life and, what he did with God gave him where he was at, you know, being an abolitionist, and and all of that. He did magnificent work in a lot of ways, but, this is one of those blind spots in Christendom that, that, hopefully, I can add to the conversation and help us to see a little bit more more clearly, even if not fully correct. Hopefully, it's, it's a tempering force for, the war drums that that so many of people in my group like to hear and follow. That's all for now.

Derek: 22:01

So peace, and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to nonviolence and Kingdom Living.