Friendly Beasts

This is a picture of my 4 year old nephew Clarke. This was taken at the Christmas pageant at St. James United Methodist Church here in Little Rock. His father was stuck in California on business. So, Uncle tmfw and his camera got pressed into service. From the look on his face, Clarke had evidently just figured out who was behind the howitzer sized zoom lens that was around 20 yards away from him.

Clarke portrayed one of the “friendly beasts” that legend tells us that attended the infant Jesus at Bethlehem. He was a friendly beast of great dignity and wonder if I do say so myself. It must be noted that the costume designer for the production took a decidedly minimalist view of the characters as they wore these Mutant Ninja headbands along with their typical Christmas stuff. At least the bovine friendly beasts were so attired. I really couldn’t figure out what the rest of them were actually wearing but I am not terribly imaginative about these things.

I had not been to one of these productions in awhile. I had forgotten how little kids will make their entrances all the while looking for their parents in the audience. I had forgotten how kids, even though they are little Arkansans, still articulate diphthongs when they sing. I pronounce “mild” as “mahld.” They sang it as “my-yulled.”

I had also forgotten how rude people can be. They were having a bake sale in the narthex to raise money for the school. There were signs up in every entrance to the Sanctuary that said, “No Food or Drinks in the Sanctuary.” And yet, there were any of a number of people noshing down on stuff they had bought as if they were at a doubleheader at Ray Winder. Before the show, the Headmaster got up and made some announcements. First of all, she requested that all video recording devices be turned off as they had hired a professional videographer to shoot the pageant. I saw any of a number of people recording this speech for posterity on their camcorders.

But the most egregious example of what I am talking about occurred about halfway through the show when a guy showed up late, and came in a door behind me, about halfway through the show. He comes over to where I am standing, shoulders me out of the way, saying “Excuse me. I need to take some pictures.”

Now, I happened to be standing there armed with a Nikon D-70 with a zoom lens and elevated light bar. What the hell was I doing? Playing the harp? I started to stand my ground and to tell him-well, you can imagine what I was going to tell him-but what few gentler angels of my nature still inhabit me encouraged me to count to five. I was in church. It did not matter. His being an idiot was his problem (actually it was his wife’s problem). So I let it pass. I just moved over and resumed taking pictures while my tardy friend went to work with-you guessed it-a camcorder.

By the way, the phrase “gentler angels of my nature” is original. Can I write or what?

I pretty much have no use for Christmas. As I have said before it is venal and mercenary. And there is a lot of bad music. But “The Friendly Beasts” is not in that number. In fact, it is one of my favorite children’s hymns for the season. The first line-which is all the Friendly Beasts at St. James graced us with-goes:

“Jesus, our brother, kind and good,
Was humbly born in a stable rude.
And the friendly beasts around Him stood,
Jesus, our brother, kind and good.”

And here is the hymn tune if you still can’t place it. I apologize for the dreadful midi: The Friendly Beasts

I don’t know why I like this little hymn so much. Maybe it’s because the hymn describes Christ as our brother, kind and good. Or maybe it is because His place of birth is referred to as humble and rude. Maybe I just like it because it is stately enough to have been turned into an Episcopalian hymn by Ralph Vaughn Williams and yet it can be sung by babies.
Even babies wearing headbands with cow markings. Sir Ralph would not have approved, I’m sure.

But events like these are about the only reason to put up with the damn holiday. Rude parents or no.