The Goose is Getting Fat

Advent is coming

Louis Armstrong and his family at a holiday dinner in Corona, Queens (1940s)

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Advent begins November 27th, the Sunday after Thanksgiving! 

I’m inviting the Black Eyed Stories’ paid-subscriber community to join me in this quiet (yet hurried) season of watching and waiting. 

I am thrilled to share with you all “An African American Twelve Days of Christmas.” This will be a retelling of the traditional 12 Days of Christmas carol. 

There’s so much beautiful imagery throughout the Christmas nativity story that reminds me of my ancestors watching, waiting, and praying for deliverance and freedom. I’m so looking forward to a season of hope, which will be a great way to close out our 2021 Hope Challenge on a joyful note. 

If you’re currently a free subscriber, I hope you’ll upgrade to “paid” and join me for the season. There’s no pressure. I’ll have festive things for free subscribers as well. But just so you know, I started working on this advent series in September! I’m that psyched about it and want to share it widely. It will be full of contemplative practices: liturgies, beatitudes, reflections, recipes, prayers, breathwork, meditations—and of course history. I think we all could use a little lift, a little magic, and a reason to believe in miracles. 

Let’s be honest, it’s been a sad couple (four or five or six) years for many of us. But there were people—my people—who during some of the darkest moments in history were able to find hope. They were able to wish on stars. They were able to believe in God and in goodness despite everything that was stacked against them. What can they teach us about the blessedness of the Christmas story without whitewashing or editing or ignoring their lived circumstances? I hope you’ll join me to find out. 

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Louis and Lucille Armstrong with a Christmas tree.

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But here’s a little taste of the joy that’s to come:  On eleventh day of Christmas, my ancestors gave to me: eleven horn players blowing…

One of those horn players was Louis Armstrong. Here’s a story from the Louis Armstrong Museum about Armstrong and his wife Lucille’s first Christmas together:  

This was something that goes way back, because you have to remember that Louis was born in pretty much the deepest poverty you could humanly imagine. And there weren’t many Christmas trees going on in his neighborhood, in the battlefield section of New Orleans. So, he meets Lucille. They get married in October 1942, they still hadn’t purchased the home in Corona yet, so their honeymoon was about six straight nights of one-nighters – a different city every night. And when it came to Christmastime, they’re in a hotel room and Louis is at the job, Lucille says, “You know what? I’m going to put up a Christmas tree in the hotel room. Let’s get a little festive atmosphere here.” And Louis comes back from the gig and he almost had tears in his eyes, Lucille said, and then he finally said, “You know? This is the first Christmas tree I’ve ever had.” And for days after, up to Christmas, even after Christmas, they brought the Christmas tree with them everywhere they go until it pretty much fell apart.

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Prayer

We desperate, O Star. 
We watch and wait 
In your glow.

O come, Rest!
O come, Breath! 
O come, Light!