Dear Friends,
Last night, Tracey and I went to see Andrew Bird again for his annual Gezelligheid tour at Fourth Presbyterian downtown. This tour happens every December and is a perfect way to enter into Advent. “Gezelligheid” is a Dutch word that means “cozy” or “conviviality,” sort of like the Danish “hygge” and German “gemütlichkeit.” After all, those cold, northern countries know our need for coziness in winter!
And the concert was all those things: a beautiful gothic church, lit only by dim chandeliers and beautiful holiday lighting and decorations reminiscent of both horns and flowers at the front of the church, swathing the musicians—Andrew Bird, his bass player Alan Hampton, and long-time collaborator and Chicagoan Nora O’Connor—in glowing sparkles.
If you don’t know Andrew Bird’s music, you can do worse than listen to “Pulaski in Lights,” with the line that Tracey and I loved to sing as we lived elsewhere: “Come back to Chicago . . .”!
Bird often plays large venues and with larger bands, but for his Gezelligheid shows, he plays simply in the resonant church space. Some of the songs are Christmas adjacent, many gesture towards his Catholic upbringing, but the entire show is pure, deep joy, whether the songs are joyful or somber: the joy of watching musicians play beautifully and well together; of an annual tradition going back for 15 years; of a nave filled with hundreds of people feeling poignant music run through us, connecting us.
This jewel-box of a show captures the jewel-box season of Advent—a time of anticipation, holding one’s breath in waiting, a glimpse of the beauty to come.
Many of us are already enmeshed in the extravaganza of Christmas, needing to decorate and shop and attend Christmas recitals and parties and more. That’s okay and normal, even if slightly exhausting. But I hope we can all keep a little place of quiet in our hearts, a place of coziness and warmth, even as the days grow shorter and colder, trusting the Gezelligheid of God is on the way.
See you in church!
Faithfully, Suzanne+
P. S. Today is the Feast of St. Nicholas, OG Santa, one of the many markers that point towards Christmas, There are more below; I hope to see you at one or more of the lovely events this season.