Daily Nourishment for The Fourth Day of Christmas: Bring a Torch Jeanette, Isabella with Guidance from Lauren Winner
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 40 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 10-15 minutes
Merry Christmas. Some of this week’s invitations will each respond to a Christmas carol or hymn. Today’s hymn is “Bring a Torch Jeanette, Isabella.”- Lauren
Pause.
Listen to the carol here. Let your body sway to the music.
Prompt.
“Bring a Torch Jeanette, Isabella” opens by instructing Jeanette and Isabella to bring light to the birthplace of Jesus. I love this image: bringing light to the Light of the World. I see Jeanette and Isabella as forerunners of the woman at the well, who, as described in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John, went to spread the news of her encounter with Jesus to the people in her town.
Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella!
Bring a torch to the stable call!
Christ is born, tell the folk of the village:
Jesus is born, and Mary's calling.
Ah! Ah! Beautiful is the Mother!
Ah! Ah! Beautiful is her Son!
Here are three different pictures of women with candles:
John Collier, All Hallow’s Eve, ca. 1895
Phillip Lindsay Mason, Maiden Voyage, ca. 1969
Georges de la Tour, The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame, ca. 1635-37
Practice.
What happens when you put either the Collier, Mason, or de la Tour in conversation with the hymn? For six minutes, write the two - a lyric and musical text, and a visual image - into relationship with one another.
Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Lauren Winner. Lauren Winner is a writer, professor, Episcopal Priest, & spiritual director.
Read Lauren’s full bio here.
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