Advent!

The other day, Andy gave me an early Christmas present.

Glad: An Acapella Christmas

It's out of print (er... out of dub? Out of burn?) but he found me a used copy on Amazon.

Suddenly it very much feels like Advent around here.

I can remember the year that Uncle Jim and Aunt Cindy gave us this album, sometime around junior high, or early high school. So I know it wasn't actually a part of all my childhood Christmasses... but it nevertheless forms the soundtrack for all my Christmas memories. The music captures like no other the essence of what Christmas means to me.

The life of the Church tends to center around Easter, but it was Christmas that was at the heart of our spiritual life as a family. The incarnation, cruxifiction, and resurrection of the God-Man is one inextricably united mystery. You cannot remember one part without pondering the whole... and the whole was most clearly before us at Christmastime, as we tried to wrap our minds around the helpless infant who was God Almighty, the unwed teen mother who was the chosen vessel for the Salvation of the world, and the birth that was heralded by angelic choirs... but no room in the inn.

Glad's soaring vocal harmonies are filled with a rich and free reverence, unconstrainedly flowing from a deep awe at deeper mysteries. Filled with parallel fifths and deceptive cadences, their unexpected harmonic interperetations of familiar melodies sound almost medieval, but the intricate rhythms are thoroughly modern. Their music is a glorious fusion of the old and the new, high art and low---uniquely fitting for remembrance of the God who came down and clothed himself in human flesh.