A winter rose

Time for the depressed Disneyland-dad at Christmas when his ex has the kids playlist — also known as "a brief contemplation on the mysteries of solitude at Christmas playlist."

We’ve got Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen, with music by Michael Praetorius. The text of this carol might be the most poetic of the Christmas season. The direct translation from the German is different than the English text to which the music is set.

Poem translation:

A rose has sprung up
from a tender branch,
as the ancient ones sang,
its origin was from Jesse;
and it brought forth a little blossom
in the middle of the cold winter,
even in the middle of the night.
The rosebud that I'm thinking of,
which Isaiah spoke of,
is Mary, the innocent,
which brought us that blossom.
Out of God's eternal counsel
She bore us a child
and remained a pure virgin.

The poem is of unknown authorship and falls under the category of Marian, that is, “of Mary.” So here we have the focus on the mother instead of the child. Praetorius set it to the familiar tune in 1609.

The significance of this poem, to my mind, is that it defines the divine blooming or growing out of this world instead of entering it from the great beyond. In this music salvation blooms from the stem with hushed voices instead of entering with the blare of angel’s trumpets.

The fanfare-Christmas has never appealed to me. For whatever reason I’ve always been drawn to the quieter side of the season — hence this playlist.

Salvation and theories on how the savior entered the world used to be a topic of great importance. People spent their lives developing a "Christology" to define Christ and how the Christmas story occurred played a role in that.

Yet who, anymore, is interested in salvation? It could just be the circles that I run in, but salvation isn’t a topic that often comes up unless it’s about a high draft pick bringing salvation to the Lakers once Kobe is gone.

Plus, we've got gifts to wrap and credit card bills to prepare for. Who is going to save us from that?