December 22: When They Saw the Star
♫ Music:
Day 26 - Thursday, December 22
Title: WHEN THEY SAW THE STAR
Scripture: Matthew 2:9-11
And behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him.
Poetry & Poet:
“The Gift”
by William Carlos Williams
As the wise men of old brought gifts
guided by a star
to the humble birthplace
of the god of love,
the devils
as an old print shows
retreated in confusion.
What could a baby know
of gold ornaments
or frankincense and myrrh,
of priestly robes
and devout genuflections?
But the imagination
knows all stories
before they are told
and knows the truth of this one
past all defection
The rich gifts
so unsuitable for a child
though devoutly proffered,
stood for all that love can bring.
The men were old
how could they know
of a mother's needs
or a child's
appetite?
But as they kneeled
the child was fed.
They saw it
and
gave praise!
A miracle
had taken place,
hard gold to love,
a mother's milk!
before
their wondering eyes.
The ass brayed
the cattle lowed.
It was their nature.
All men by their nature give praise.
It is all
they can do.
The very devils
by their flight give praise.
What is death,
beside this?
Nothing. The wise men
came with gifts
and bowed down
to worship
this perfection.
WHEN THEY SAW THE STAR
Artist Mercedes Dorame sometimes works as a “cultural resource consultant” in and around her native Los Angeles. Upon breaking ground, real estate developers often encounter ancient burial sites and other artifacts from the Tongva people, who populated the area for thousands of years. When they do, Dorame and other descendants of the Tongva are called in to identify and bear witness to the artifacts and human remains. “I was like a professional mourner,” she recounts, “you were there to mourn these people, because no one else was going to do it.”
Her sculptural “star map” “Orion’s Belt—Paahe’ Sheshiiyot” is composed from earth, living things and ancient artifacts found at these sites. As cultures often do, hers looked to the stars to make sense of these divides: between her and her ancestors, between the ancient and contemporary worlds, between life and death, between the human and the divine.
In her role as a witness, doing what no one else was going to do, Dorame’s search echoes that of ancient near-eastern Magi who, consulting their own cosmology, sought a king they believed to have been born in a land they did not know. We don’t know what wisdom they held or what systems they had consulted as they followed the Star of Bethlehem. Clearly, they had little idea what they would be encountering, or what the consequences of their journey would be. Yet upon arrival, they didn’t hesitate to bow down and worship the child they found: one of unremarkable means, in an unremarkable place. No one else was there to bear witness. They offered their presence and they offered praise, lavishing the young king with royal gifts even as the world around ceased to see anything of note. Like Dorame, there was little else they could do.
The Magi provide a map of sorts of all of us to follow. Our role is a humble one. As much as we study, as much wisdom and knowledge as we gain, in the end we will understand exceedingly little of the infinite glory of the Lord. We will not full grasp the mystery of the incarnation. Whether wise man or shepherd, our role is simple: to bear witness to the glory we have been pointed toward, and to fall down at the feet of Him to brought us there. What else are we here to do? As William Carlos Williams so succinctly surmises:
All men by their nature give praise.
It is all
they can do.
Let’s keep it as simple as that, following wherever He leads and worshiping with everything we have.
Prayer:
Lord, be my one and only guide.
I ask for the wisdom to see your light in a firmament of lesser stars.
I ask for fulfillment in my simple role as a witness to your glory.
I ask for the courage to fix my eyes on you and follow your light wherever it leads, regardless of the busy-ness of the world all around.
Fill my soul with your Spirit, so I never cease in falling before you, heart overflowing in lavish worship.
Luke Aleckson
Professor, Department of Art
Executive Director, Center for Christianity, Culture & the Arts
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
Orion’s Belt—Paahe’ Sheshiiyot
Mercedes Dorame
2018
Concrete cogged stones, ochre, abalone, shells, feathers, salt, cinnamon, redwood cones, leather, and yarn
Hammer Museum
Los Angeles, California
Photo: Brian Forrest
Mercedes Dorame uses photography as a way to explore, reimagine, and connect to her Gabrielino-Tongva tribal culture and bring visibility to contemporary indigenous experience. The Tongva were the first people in what is now Los Angeles, and their territory covered the expanse from Malibu to San Bernardino to Aliso Creek. They have inhabited the Los Angeles basin for over eight thousand years and were officially recognized as an indigenous tribe by the state of California in 1994. The sculptural installation Orion’s Belt—Paahe’ Sheshiiyot—a map for moving between worlds—features several cog stones that Dorame recreated based on her experience with artifacts found on a sacred site by commercial developers. Dorame employs these cog stones as symbolic ceremonial objects, as stars in constellations meant to create maps to move between worlds. Using the constellation Orion, which marks due west as it sets,
https://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2018/made-in-la-2018/mercedes-dorame
About the Artist:
Mercedes Dorame (b. 1980), born in Los Angeles, California, received her M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute, and her undergraduate degree from UCLA. She calls on her Tongva ancestry to engage the problematics of (in)visibility and ideas of cultural construction. Dorame’s work is in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Triton Museum, The Allen Memorial Art Museum, The de Saisset Museum, and The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum. She is the recipient of grants and fellowships from Creative Capital, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Loop Artist Residency, and the James Phelan Award for California-born visual artists. She is currently visiting faculty at CalArts, and was recently honored by UCLA as part of the centennial initiative “UCLA: Our Stories Our Impact,” and was part of the Hammer Museum’s 2018 Made in LA exhibition. Her artwork has been highlighted by PBS Newshour, Artforum, KCET Artbound, The New York Times, Art in America, Hyperallergic, ARTnews, The Los Angeles Times, and the SF Chronicle, among others.
https://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2018/made-in-la-2018/mercedes-dorame
https://www.mercedesdorame.com/about
About the Music #1:
“Christus, Op. 97: Recitative: When Jesus, Our Lord - Trio: Say, Where is He Born” from the album Christmas Masterpieces and Familiar Carols
Lyrics #1: (Sung in English)
From "Christus," an unfinished oratorio written by Felix Mendelssohn was published posthumously as “Op. 97” and completed by the composer's brother, Paul. Original German text compiled by Christian Charles Josias von Bunsen.
When Jesus, our Lord,
was born in Bethlehem,
in the land of Judea;
Behold, from the East to the city of Jerusalem
there came wise men and said:
Say, where is He born, the king of Judea?
for we have seen His star, and are come to adore Him.
Have seen His star and are come to adore Him.
Are come to adore Him.
Say where is He, born the king of Judea
Glorious is He as He is loved
As he is loved, as He is loved
And we adore Him
For we have seen the Son
About the Music #2:
“Christus, Op. 97, Chorus: There Shall a Star” from the album Christmas Masterpieces and Familiar Carols
Lyrics #2: (Sung in English)
There shall a star from Jacob come forth,
and a scepter from Israel rise up,
and dash in pieces princes and nations.
How brightly gleams the morning star
With such a radiance from our God
Bring light and comfort; glowing
As bright the star of morning gleams,
so Jesus sheddeth glorious beams
of light and consolation!
Thy Word, O Lord, radiance darting,
truth imparting, gives salvation;
Thine be praise and adoration!
About the Performers for Selections #1 and #2:
Westminster Choir, Joseph Flummerfelt (conductor), New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia
Setting the standard for choral excellence since 1920, the Westminster Choir is composed of students at Rider University’s Westminster College of the Arts. The Westminster Choir has been recording choral masterworks for nine decades. Praised by The New York Times for its “full-bodied, incisive singing,” the choir also forms the core of the Westminster Symphonic Choir, which has performed and recorded with the leading conductors and orchestras of our time. Recent seasons have included concert tours in China, and Spain, as well as participation in the World Symposium on Choral Music in Barcelona and groundbreaking performances of Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Anthracite Fields at the historic Roebling WireWorks as part of Westminster’s Transforming Space Project.
https://www.rider.edu/academics/colleges-schools/westminster-college-arts/wcc/choral-studies/the-choirs/westminster-choir
Conductor:
Joseph Flummerfelt (1937–2019) was an American conductor. He taught at Rider University’s Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, for three decades. He was a co-founder of the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1977, and its director of choral activities from 1977 to 2013. He was also the chorus master of the Festival dei Due Mondi in Italy from 1971 to 1993. According to The New York Times, he "played an outsize, if not always highly visible, role in American classical music."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Flummerfelt
Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia (The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia)
Music director Marc Mostovoy established this ensemble known as the Concerto Soloists in 1964 with its name deriving from performances by its virtuosi musicians (which numbered less than twenty at the time) as both ensemble members and soloists. Influenced by the chamber orchestras of Mozart and Bach, their performances centered around the Baroque and classical repertoire but over time more than sixty works were commissioned for them. They embarked on successful American, European, and Middle Eastern tours and were acclaimed for their concerts staged at Carnegie Hall. In 1982 Max Rudolf, who had previously conducted the Metropolitan Opera and Cincinnati Symphony, became the ensemble’s conductor laureate and remained in that position until the mid-1990s. They appeared on recordings such as Ave Maria: Christmas Favourites; Handel: Roman Vespers; Gloria! Gloria!; Joy to the World; and Silent Nights. In 1994 Ignat Solzhenitsyn, the son of Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, joined them as an associate conductor. He was instrumental in enlarging their repertoire to include a wide variety of musical genres and increasing the size of the ensemble. In 2010 Dirk Brosse, who also had the unenviable task of improving their ailing finances, took his place as music director. When 2000 came around, they changed their name to The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and became one of the eight companies chosen to be resident at the city’s The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.
https://www.feenotes.com/database/groups/concerto-soloists-chamber-orchestra-of-philadelphia/
New Jersey Symphony Orchestra is a world-class orchestra with local roots, creative programming in concerts throughout the state of New Jersey, and service to the community through education—hallmarks of the symphony since its beginnings nearly one hundred years ago. Internationally renowned Chinese American conductor Xian Zhang began her tenure as the New Jersey Symphony’s music director in 2016. Since assuming the helm of the New Jersey Symphony, Zhang has revitalized the symphony programming with an industry-leading commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in mainstage concerts. A contract extension for Zhang secures the acclaimed conductor’s leadership of the New Jersey Symphony through the 2027–28 season.
https://www.njsymphony.org/about/njso-history
https://www.njsymphony.org/about
Anne Ackley is an American soprano. She has B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and M.A. of music from New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She studied voice with George McKinley, Margaret Harshaw, Daniel Pratt, and Mark Pearson; and was coached with John Moriarty, Martin Katz, and Glenn Parker. Gray has appeared as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, New York Schola Cantorum, and the American Bach Society. She has had opera roles with the June Opera Festival of New Jersey. From 1982 Anne Ackley Gray was associate professor of voice at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, and from 1993 a member of the faculty of Westminster High School Vocal Institute. She was voice instructor at Princeton University from 1983 to 1985. She is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing and the American Chamber Ensemble.
https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Ackley-Gray-Anne.htm
About the Composer for Musical Selections #1 and #2:
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809–1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist, and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn was born into a prominent Jewish family and although initially raised without religion, he was later baptized as a Reformed Christian. Mendelssohn was recognized early as a musical prodigy and enjoyed early success in Germany and in his travels throughout Europe. He was particularly well-received in Britain as a composer, conductor, and soloist. His ten visits to England—during which many of his major works were premiered—form an important part of his mature career. Mendelssohn wrote symphonies, concerti, oratorios, piano music, and chamber music. His best-known works include his Overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the overture The Hebrides, his mature Violin Concerto, and his String Octet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Mendelssohn
https://pragueclassicalconcerts.com/en/composers/mendelssohn
About the Poetry & Poet:
William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) was an American poet closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician, practicing both pediatrics and general medicine. He was affiliated with what was then known as Passaic General Hospital in Passaic, New Jersey, where he served as the hospital's chief of pediatrics from 1924 until his death in 1963. Williams has always been known as an experimenter, an innovator, and a revolutionary figure in American poetry. Yet in comparison to artists of his own time who sought a new environment for creativity as expatriates in Europe, Williams lived a remarkably conventional life. A doctor for more than forty years, he relied on his patients, the America around him, and his own imagination to create a distinctively American verse. Often domestic in focus and "remarkable for its empathy, sympathy, its muscular and emotional identification with its subjects," Williams' poetry is characterized by honesty and candor.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-carlos-williams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carlos_Williams
About the Devotion Author:
Luke Aleckson
Professor, Department of Art
Executive Director, Center for Christianity, Culture & the Arts
Biola University
Luke Aleckson is an Assistant Professor of Art at Biola University and is currently the Executive Director of the CCCA. He received his M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in sculpture and a B.S. in art from the University of Northwestern, St. Paul, Minnesota. Past positions have included serving as Department Chair and Professor of Art and Design at the University of Northwestern and the Director of Denler Gallery in St. Paul. Past exhibitions of his artwork have been held nationally, at venues such as the Chicago Cultural Center, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Suburban in Oak Park, Illinois. He maintains an active art practice in which he explores sculpture, digital modeling, video art, and installation art.