A ‘Stille Nacht’ on new fallen snow

As I sit down to write this thing, I’m just in from shoveling snow from my sidewalk that leads from the house to the lane. It’s the fourth time I’ve been out in the last 24 hours, something to which my less-than-perfect heart can attest. Years ago, I used to scoff at the notion that shoveling heavy snow was dangerous, then a couple of people I knew died after shoveling what appeared to be the innocence of snow. In some ways, we grow smarter with age, but I’m here to tell that it’s not always true.

We are now in the midst of what Christians call Advent, a time for celebrating the birth of a man more than 2,000 years ago, and for preparing for the second coming of the same man. It’s not something I completely understand, but any season marked by talk of peace and love is fine by me. The word ‘advent’ means waiting for, and preparing for, the arrival of an important person or event, something Irish playwright Samuel Beckett understood when he wrote the brilliant “Waiting for Godot,” a play in which two characters rhapsodize about how their lives will change for the better once someone named Godot arrives. Of course, Godot never shows.

Last week, I read an extraordinary poem written in 1890 by an English poet named Francis Thompson, a poem called “The Hound of Heaven.” The year before, my German grandfather was born, Franz Seraph Maier, a very celestial name. He was born in a small town near the Austrian border, and he came to America in 1913. When he navigated the immigration process at Ellis Island, the officials changed his first name from Franz to Francis, like the poet. Heaven forbid that immigrants have names that don’t sound American. Anyway, the poem is about humans trying to run away from God, God being the hound in search of man’s soul. “I fled him, down the nights and down the days; I fled him, down the arches of the years; I fled him, down the labyrinthine ways.” We often run from those beliefs that are, in fact, the very things that will fulfill our lives

The snow cover out here is beautiful, Christmas card-like, and deep. A kind neighbor on his big John Deere tractor just finished moving the stuff from my long lane, something I appreciate, as a dear friend in a nearby town has asked me to join her for a homemade soup lunch, and now I can make it to her home, a cozy place already decorated for the season. A county snowplow cleared the gravel road out front a while ago, and I’ve only got a few thousand miles of wear on my car’s tires, so all should be fine when lunchtime approaches

Hawks are hanging out on electric lines, watching for small movements in the snow. Magnificent creatures, I wish them well. Other creatures have hunkered down for a little while, but will soon enough begin to make their way across the snow. For now, all is quiet, silent, like the Christmas song written by another Franz, an Austrian teacher named Franz Gruber, who wrote “Stille Nacht,” German for “Silent Night.” Years ago, I joined 600 other parishioners in magnificent St. Luke’s Church in Munich, a Lutheran church, at Christmastime, and the service ended with all of us standing and singing “Stille Nacht,” in German, of course. My grandfather was gone by then. I miss him, especially this time of year. Lately, I’ve been thinking of him often. I have a small photo exhibit that will be on display beginning in January, an exhibit called, simply, “Home.” One of the photos is of a small, glass German ornament that hung on our tree for decades, a depiction of Father Christmas. I look at the photo and see an elegant old man who spoke to me in a heavy German accent, a man who left his home country for a better life here, one that he found, particularly during the holiday season, when his family came to call.

Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County and hosts the “Rural America” podcast. It can be found at https://www.ullrichruralamerica.com