Today’s postlude is a fun ditty on a French carol called “Bring a Torch Jeanette Isabella.” It originated in the 17th century in Provence. The song was intended as dance music and was later translated into English and published in France. In the story, the carol is about two shepherdesses, Jeannette and Isabella, who are excited to find the baby Jesus in the stable and are told to bring torches. In Provence, children still carry torches and candles while singing the carol to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, dressed as shepherds and milkmaids. 

I called this arrangement, by Canadian composer Denis Bédard, a “ditty,” but not derogatorily. A ditty is a cute name for a short, simple song. The etymology of the word ditty is interesting. It’s from Old French dite ‘composition’, and from Latin dictatum meaning ‘something dictated.’ It’s an interesting parallel that Jeanette and Isabella were instructed to find the Christ Child. Of course, Christ means “anointed one,” and we are often directed to our own inward knowledge of the Light of Christ, symbolized in torches in this carol. So, what do you find in your own mind? Pitchforks and torches, or real light – the light that sheds the meaning of love on the world?

Stevie Wonder once said about his own music that he was simply excited about what he was hearing in his mind. I can relate. I’m a deep thinker, and I love my ideas. When I started on my book two years ago, I heard it being dictated. It was the strangest ditty. I’d wake up from a nap or from a night’s sleep, and I’d hear fragments of it, and I’d have to run to the computer to not forget what I had heard! Torches – light leading the path of becoming an author I suppose.

How many of us are excited about what we “find” in our heads? Are you hearing ditties or dirges? Are you seeing dreams or nightmares? In a famous song from the 80s called “Flashdance,” Irene Cena sings, “Pictures come alive you can dance right through your life.” Unfortunately, pictures do come alive, and too often they devour us with worst-case scenarios. Thoughts can take on a mind of their own. Ever heard of a runaway thought?

The Light of which I speak is often overlooked and maybe words like this shed some light on how we are scaring ourselves. My hope for 2025 is that we’d all stop scaring ourselves and start getting excited about what’s in our heads. I get excited about what’s in my head and heart, and my fingers dance on the keyboard – both at the organ as a musician and the computer as a writer. What a dance!

The postlude today is a ditty, and a ditty makes you dance. Thank God Denis Bedard went to the manuscript paper after hearing it in his head. What’s in most of our heads is garbage – complaints and grievances. Those are pitchforks and torches! Bring a Torch is a dance of an entirely different matter, certainly not the danse macabre.

This will be the year of the ditty. I’m excited about what’s in my head. I’m ecstatic, honestly. Pictures come alive! I think I will dance right through my life. I’ve been pretty good at that thus far. I’m really going to master this ditty thing. Enough pitchforks and torches. Time to torch the fear and shed real Light on the world, something to be excited about, something to help people stop scaring themselves. Soli Deo Gloria!