Vierter Advent

You never had it so good, versicherte der Premierminister Harold Macmillan 1957 der Nation. Und stellte noch mehr in Aussicht: You will see a state of prosperity such as we have never had in my lifetime - nor indeed in the history of this country. Der wirtschaftliche Boom war spät gekommen für die Engländer, den Deutschen, die den Krieg verloren hatten, ging es schon viel besser. Aber so schön dieser Slogan You never had it so good war, er war wie alle griffigen Slogans nicht ganz wahr. Der damalige Erzbischof von Canterbury nannte den Satz a dreadful phrase. Und er fügte hinzu: Whenever I hear it. I say to myself in the words of Our Lord, 'how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of Heaven'. Christentum und Kommerz bei den Engländern. Der alte Dubslav von Stechlin sagt dazu in Fontanes ➱Roman: Sie sind drüben schrecklich runtergekommen, weil der Kult vor dem Goldenen Kalbe beständig wächst; lauter Jobber, und die vornehmen Leute obenan. Und dabei so heuchlerisch; sie sagen Christus und meinen Kattun.

Mein heutiges Adventsgedicht stammt von John Betjeman, es wurde 1955 geschrieben. Es spiegelt schon ein wenig von dem Überdruss gegen den wuchernden Kommerz wider: We raise the price of things in shops, We give plain boxes fancy tops And lines which traders cannot sell Thus parcell’d go extremely well We dole out bribes we call a present To those to whom we must be pleasant. Das sind Zeilen, die typisch für John Betjeman sind, witzig und ein klein wenig bösartig. Aber er schreibt Gedichte, die die Leute verstehen. W.H. Auden hat in dem Vorwort zu Slick But Not Streamlined Betjeman mit seiner Lieblingstante verglichen: How else could he have entered so intimately into my childhood? How else could he be so at home with the provincial gas-lit towns, the seaside lodgings, the bicycle, the harmonium? Betjeman ist für ihn a man one has sung hymns with. Obgleich er zur upper middle-class gehört, ist er ein Mann des Volkes. Vom Aufschwung Englands hat auch Betjeman profitiert, seine Collected Poems von 1958 verkauften sich hunderttausend Mal. Doch so kritisch das Gedicht beginnt, Betjeman findet einen großartigen Schluss. Advent und Weihnachten sind dafür da, dass Media Markt tönen darf Weihnachten wird unterm Baum entschieden. Es ist eine Zeit des Innehaltens und des Nachdenkens.

Advent 1955

The Advent wind begins to stir
With sea-like sounds in our Scotch fir,
It's dark at breakfast, dark at tea,
And in between we only see
Clouds hurrying across the sky
And rain-wet roads the wind blows dry
And branches bending to the gale
Against great skies all silver-pale.
The world seems traveling into space,
And traveling at a faster pace
Than in the leisured summer weather
When we and it sit out together,
For now we feel the world spin round
On some momentous journey bound —
Journey to what? to whom? to where?
The Advent bells call out 'Prepare,
Your world is journeying to the birth
Of God made Man for us on earth.'
And how, in fact, do we prepare
For the great day that waits us there —
The twenty-fifth day of December,
The birth of Christ? For some it means
An interchange of hunting scenes
On coloured cards. And I remember
Last year I sent out twenty yards,
Laid end to end, of Christmas cards
To people that I scarcely know —
They'd sent a card to me, and so
I had to send one back. Oh dear!
Is this a form of Christmas cheer?
Or is it, which is less surprising,
My pride gone in for advertising?
The only cards that really count
Are that extremely small amount
From real friends who keep in touch
And are not rich but love us much.
Some ways indeed are very odd
By which we hail the birth of God.
We raise the price of things in shops,
We give plain boxes fancy tops
And lines which traders cannot sell
Thus parcell'd go extremely well.
We dole out bribes we call a present
To those to whom we must be pleasant
For business reasons. Our defense is
These bribes are charged against expenses
And bring relief in Income Tax.
Enough of these unworthy cracks!
"The time draws near the birth of Christ',
A present that cannot be priced
Given two thousand years ago.
Yet if God had not given so
He still would be a distant stranger
And not the Baby in the manger.