ok the shittiest part about christmastime is the fact people keep skipping over the forth verse of “we three kings” like… we get it. y’all are white protestants who can’t even think about mortality for one single second.
also people who skip the third verse of “o holy night” are reactionary cowards
ok but these lyrics are so powerful and amazing. im so pissed.
We Three Kings (4):
Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume Breathes a life of gathering gloom; Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, Sealed in the stone cold tomb.
O Holy Night (3):
Truly He taught us to love one another, His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother. And in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, With all our hearts we praise His holy name. Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we, His power and glory ever more proclaim! His power and glory ever more proclaim!
Important context on O Holy Night: The English lyrics by John Sullivan Dwight are from 1855, a full decade before the abolition of slavery in the United States. In fact, abolition was still a VERY fringe position. Pro-slavery advocates, meanwhile, were arguing that slavery was God’s gift to white civilization. In that year, six years before the Civil War began, Americans were already shooting each other over whether slavery should expand out in Kansas.
Dwight–unsurprisingly, a Unitarian minister–put the most inflammatory possible political statement of the day into his Christmas carol.
For the artists who went unnoticed, who filled margins and sketchbooks but never let the pictures see the light of day. For the writers who never could get the people they loved to read their work; who spent hours a day pouring effort into pages only to never have readers, never have positive feedback. For the dancers with the “wrong” body type. For the actors who only ever got small roles. For the musicians who had choir voices or ninth chair skills or nobody in the audience.
For hearing “what’s the point of taking a class that easy,” for not being allowed to take the class at all. For hearing “I can do better,” or worse, that noncommittal “oh”. For hours working not even given a second of someone’s time. For parents that occasionally glanced it over but mostly waved it off and said “it’s fine do your homework.” For knowing you’re not good enough to make a profit from it, for being told a lack of commission quality was the same thing as being worthless, for believing it. For not being considered “talented” but somehow remaining passionate. For the not-good-enoughs, who never got famous, never got seen, never got anything.
For the creators. Even when you were unnoticed and unloved and embarrassed of your passions. Even when it hurt and got annoying and felt foolish to be doing. Even when nobody was looking: you made things. You saw empty space and pulled from the ether. You put your heart and soul into things other people never bothered knowing. You were told you were wasted on what you loved; you loved what other people considered a waste.
No more making in the dark. I want to see what you do even if “it’s bad”, even if nobody else ever asks you to. Come into the light. Make to spite them. Make for a younger you that didn’t have the energy, make because they couldn’t kill what burned in you even after years of suffocating, make because the idea of not-making is scary. Make for the sheer sake of making, because all art is an act against entropy. Make and be happy. It doesn’t need to be amazing. Do you know what you’re doing every time you’re creating.
The word “abracadabra” means “I create as I speak.” Tell me you aren’t magic. You force something from nothing. You made. And you make. How much more powerful can one person be?
A busker plays music for a blind autistic girl sitting in a wheelchair. She’s being allowed to stim (flapping and rubbing her shirt) and respond to the music her own natural way. The busker places her hand on the guitar to let her see what is creating the music, and she smiles as he sings to her.
They made a connection.
That is autism acceptance.
Take note. Many autistic people will open up to you like a flower if you gently connect with them in ways that work for them instead of forcing them to connect with you in ways that only work for you.
I hope that sweet kid grows up to be a musician or artist! 🙂
willowfoot 