{"id":4254,"date":"2024-12-09T07:28:38","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T12:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4254"},"modified":"2024-12-09T07:28:38","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T12:28:38","slug":"i-wonder-as-i-wander-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/09\/i-wonder-as-i-wander-2\/","title":{"rendered":"I Wonder as I Wander"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

During the heart of the Depression, American folklorist John Jacob Niles was sampling original music of Appalachian hill folk.

While passing through the rustic town of Murphy, North Carolina, in July 1933, Niles paused to attend a revivalist rally.

The Morgan family, traveling revivalists, had been in town for a few days.\u00a0They had no money and no place to stay.\u00a0They had camped out on the town square, where they did their cooking and hung up their laundry.\u00a0Town officials declared them a public nuisance and ordered the family to depart.

The Morgans asked if they could hold one more open-air meeting.\u00a0That way, they hoped, they could raise enough money to put some gas in their car.

It was during that gathering that Niles heard young Annie Morgan.\u00a0

He later wrote: \u201cA girl had stepped out to the edge of the little platform attached to the automobile.\u00a0She began to sing.\u00a0Her clothes were unbelievable[sic] dirty and ragged, and she, too, was unwashed.\u00a0Her ash-blond hair hung down in long skeins\u2026

\u201cBut, best of all, she was beautiful, and in her untutored way, she could sing.\u00a0She smiled as she sang, smiled rather sadly, and sang only a single line of a song.\u201d

That line blew Niles away.

Would she be willing to sing that line again, for a quarter?

She did\u2026seven times for seven quarters.\u00a0Niles left with \u201cthree lines of verse, a garbled fragment of melodic material, and a magnificent idea.\u201d

Niles put together a complete song, and six months later he performed \u201cI Wonder as I Wander\u201d for the first time.\u00a0It soon became a classic hill country Christmas carol:

I wonder as I wander out under the sky, how Jesus the Savior did come for to die.<\/em>
For poor ornery people like you and like I; I wonder as I wander out under the sky.<\/em>

When Mary birthed Jesus ’twas in a cow’s stall, with wise men and farmers and shepherds and all<\/em>
But high from God’s heaven, a star’s light did fall, and the promise of ages it then did recall.<\/em>

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing: a star in the sky or a bird on the wing<\/em>
Or all of God’s angels in heaven to sing, he surely could have it, ’cause he was the King.<\/em>

I wonder as I wander out under the sky how Jesus the Savior did come for to die<\/em>
For poor ornery people like you and like I; I wonder as I wander out under the sky.<\/em>

This rendition by Audrey Assad<\/a> \u2013 in which she sings just the first and last verses \u2013 captures its haunting, almost painful beauty.\u00a0

The gospels report that impoverished, ordinary, one-day-at-a-time people were drawn to Jesus like iron filings to a magnet.\u00a0He honored and loved them.\u00a0He spoke of the Great Reversal, in which the first would be last, and the last would be first.\u00a0

\u201cBlessed are the poor in spirit,\u201d he taught, \u201cfor theirs is the kingdom of heaven\u201d\u00a0(Matthew 5:3).\u00a0The kingdom belongs to those who have nothing to fall back on, nothing in the bank for a rainy day.\u00a0

They abandon themselves to God because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.\u00a0

Deep in her soul, a young Appalachian girl was filled with wonder \u2013 wonder that in a world where life isn\u2019t easy, Jesus is all we need.

The two \u201cW\u201d words also seem to resonate with modern listeners, but for a different reason. There\u2019s a lot of wondering and wandering in \u201cjourney\u201d theology, where the meaning of life is tied more closely to the sincerity of our spiritual meanderings than whether or not we ever reach a destination.

The central question of the 21st<\/sup> century seems to be:\u00a0Does any truth deserve a capital T?<\/em>

But note that Niles\u2019 lyrics are not so much about a search for truth as they are a deep contemplation of the meaning of Jesus\u2019 life, and a wondering about the mystery of his sacrificial death.

The common theme of carols, both old and new, is that Christmas is not just a story to ponder.\u00a0Ultimately it\u2019s a reality to receive.

As Susan Jeffers puts it, we can\u2019t always be playing the When\/Then Game:

When I finally get answers to my questions, then I\u2019ll get serious about encountering God.<\/em>
When my spouse becomes more supportive, then I\u2019ll work on being a great partner.
When things settle down, then I\u2019ll find time to serve others.
When the holidays are finally over, then I\u2019ll think about taking that next step of faith.<\/em>

When will Then<\/em> become Now<\/em>?

Almost certainly about the same time we grasp that all of us, spiritually, are \u201cpoor, ornery people\u201d \u2013 desperately in need of the King.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here During the heart of the Depression, American folklorist John Jacob Niles was sampling original music of Appalachian hill folk. While passing through the rustic town of Murphy, North Carolina, in July 1933, Niles paused to attend a revivalist rally. The Morgan family, traveling revivalists, had been in town for a few… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-4254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas-carols"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4256,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254\/revisions\/4256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}