Tis the season to be jolly… or something like that. For the record, let’s ensure we’re all on the same page…
jolly [ jol-ee ]
adjective, jol·li·er, jol·li·est.
1. in good spirits; lively; merry: In a moment he was as jolly as ever.
2. cheerfully festive or convivial: a jolly party.
3. joyous; happy: Christmas is a jolly season.
So I thought about the idea. What makes us jolly? What puts us in good spirits, making us cheerfully festive, and joyous?
I think of our family evening the other night…
We were gathered in concert with thousands of others, encouraged and inspired by the talents and gifts of the Australian brothers Joel and Luke Smallbone — also known as the talented pop duo “for KING & COUNTRY.”
Declared by Billboard magazine in 2012 as one of the “New Artists to Watch,” their success and status has only increased, humble as the men seem to stay. As another musical publication articulated, “It takes only one listen to the brothers’ rich, upbeat, alternative sounds and thoughtful lyrics to understand their sudden popularity.”
And as they performed once more on their “A Drummer Boy Christmas” tour, I realized a little bit more of what it means to be jolly… to feel that inspiring, lively happiness…
Here in an arena that seats some 20,000 people, there is no way we are all alike. There are differences in demographics, belief systems, convictions, you-name-it.
And yet somewhere in the middle of all the rum-pa-pum-pums, they took time to sing a few other, non-seasonal songs…
“Burn the Ships,” for example, where they see each day as an opportunity, a time to “step into a new day,” saying “so long to shame” and more… “Joy,” where they encourage the intentional choosing of inner delight…
But my favorite came from “Together,” written by the duo along with Tori Kelly and Kirk Franklin, released two years ago at some of the height of our country’s racial and political tension; the chorus and included end says this:
“If we fall, we will fall together
Take my hand
Come and stand
When we rise
We will rise together
Together
Together we are dangerous
Together with our differences
Together we are bolder, braver, stronger.”
Said Luke later, noting that they originally didn’t have time to finish the song as desired for a previous record:
“What’s ironic is the song was kind of shelved. Fast forward to where we are now and I find it amazing that a song we couldn’t finish back then is really dealing with the core issues in regards to what I think a lot of people are struggling with right now. They feel isolated, they feel like they’re lonely. Most of the time you have these things take place in your countries, your towns or whatever but this is something that’s actually happening around the world. There’s a lyric in the song that says ‘if we fall’ and we’ve all fallen; everybody knows somebody that has fallen significantly. We have this opportunity coming up of how we will rise. Our hope is the narrative can be hey this took place in 2020 and what an unbelievable difficult thing it was for the world but look what good came out of it because we actually united over commonalities instead of trying to find our differences.”
Without a doubt, uniting over our commonalities, realizing we were each divinely created, that puts me in good spirits, makes me cheerfully festive, and joyous, too.
Tis the season, you know.
Respectfully…
AR