Born to be our Sun.
Merry Christmas from Korea! We are in the last days of 2022 now, our white Christmas still blanketing rooftops and hanging frozen from gutters. It’s beautiful. My childhood memories of cold, snowy Christmas seasons make Korea feel like home. I don’t have biological family here, but sharing Christmas days with the motley assortment of folks that comprise Yeongwol community provided the warmth of home this year. Sitting by a fireside, I learned a few native Korean Christmas songs and sang many of my favorite English carols in Korean. I heard A Christmas Carol read aloud and wondered which brave translator had wrestled Dickens’ lines into Korean.
My grandmother Margery, English like Dickens, was a writer of a different kind. She composed the words and music of many children’s songs, mostly with cheerful lyrics celebrating small beauties of nature. I discovered a song of hers in our bilingual song folder as our community sang together one evening. This one was a simple little Christmas poem which my grandmother put to music. Compared to Dickens, translating this English to Korean must be easy.
Born in a stable, born among cattle.
Born to sweet Mary, born to be King.
Born to be our sun, sun of a bright world,
Sleep, little Christ Child, while angels sing.
Although most of her song lyrics were original, this little Christmas song used a Hungarian poem. Perhaps seeing the reference to Hungary confused me as a child, because I believed that my grandmother was from Hungary. I’m guessing I wasn’t the only kid intrigued by “Hungary” versus “hungry.” I remember proudly informing a few people about my Hungarian roots, but always with a vague sense that I might have got it wrong. Now I know my grandmother was as British as a cup of tea.
This Christmas, singing the familiar song in English and then in Korean filled me with special joy. Did the unknown Hungarian author know that his or her poem would become a lullaby sung by many voices? Did my grandmother ever imagine that her little melody would give wings to the poem, sending it all the way to Korea? Did she imagine that a granddaughter would be in Korea, singing it? What inspired her to make it into a song? I asked my aunt and she gave me some clues.
My grandmother grew up hearing her father’s and uncles’stories of World War I; during World War II, she experienced the bombing of London and the terrible destruction, misery, and fear it caused. In October 1944 while the war was still raging, my grandmother discovered the Wheathill Bruderhof and a new life of faith and peace that contrasted the terrors of war. Perhaps the words of her song are a reflection of her joy.
“Born to be our sun, sun of a bright world.”
The line is so full of hope. The words are so simple, yet so strong. I imagine they resonated in my grandmother’s heart, and her fingertips quickly picked out the tune on her piano.
In the quarter century that I’ve been alive, this world has not been bright.There is darkness: wars, tensions, conflicts, famine, inflation, flooding, heat waves, violence, and in each individual life, indescribable turmoil. In a divided Korea, the DMZ ties dark history to dark present. Earlier this month two couples from Yeongwol community made a trip to the DMZ. Bill Wiser wrote his reflections here. They visited the Border Peace School (BPS) where people keep dreams of reconciliation alive despite the grim military stand-off, as volatile entering 2023 as it was in 1953. Korea needs a bright sun. We all need a bright world.
As Yeongwol community and a few visitors gathered for a live nativity on Christmas Eve, warm layers hardly kept out cold wind. But in each of our hearts crept the warm knowledge that we were celebrating the birth of a baby who still today leads us to a bright world, who experiences and suffers our darkness, and makes us able to bear it until He returns. He was born in a stable, but He was born to be King!
