My mother was a great piano player, and often while I was growing up we gathered around the piano to sing. At Christmas, we sang from the von Trapp Family song book, a wonderful group of four-part arrangements of old carols. There were seven of us kids, just like the von Trapp family, which somehow made the songbook resonate. I can still sing some of those arrangements from memory. One of my favorites is Jerusalem Gaudé, a late Renaissance work in Latin by the Slovene, Jacob Handl.

It’s an Advent carol, a slightly mournful tune with hopeful lyrics, a combination that I find irresistible. Advent, like Lent, is a penitential season, in which believers are asked to meditate on their failings, in the hope that with the great feast day of Christmas, they will be inspired to make changes in their lives to bring them more into line with their beliefs and their best selves. All three monotheist religions have similar seasons, the Jewish day of atonement, the Muslim Ramadan. These seasons of the liturgical year call attention to our weaknesses as humans, and also our strengths. The season reminds us that we are imperfect, but it also reminds us that we have the ability to make ourselves different and, hopefully, better.

That double meaning is reflected in the songs of the season, like Jerusalem Gaudé. Somehow it seems extra poignant this year. We in this community have been fighting for ideals all year, ideals that we hope are in the great tradition of the Axial Religions, which were born in the period 900 – 200 BCE: Hinduism, Judaism, Jainism, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and philosophical rationalism. It is from these Great Religions that the Golden Rule developed. For those of us of a secular bent, it is worth noting that Greek rationalism did not develop a version of the Golden Rule, according to Karen Armstrong, so perhaps a bit of humility is in order.

We hope that the progressive ideas we support have their roots in the Golden Rule. We want everyone to have real health care, we want an economic system that offers meaningful work to everyone and rewards that work. We want our country to express our values. We want these things for ourselves, and so we want them for all of us, doing unto others what we want for ourselves.

This is a season of hope, a season in which we ask ourselves if we are acting rightly, and a season in which we ask more of ourselves.

And so, a Merry Hopeful Season to everyone in this community.