Eric Folkerth

THE VISION OF THE SHEPHERDS/AT THE MANGER
Sections Five and Six of WH Auden’s “For The Time Being.” (FTTB)
(For section four: click here)

Well, I’ve gotten a bit behind schedule, and so we’ll cover two sections today. But this isn’t bad, really, because it will allow us to continue the compare/contrast of two groups of characters.

As you might recall from last time, Auden juxtaposes the two groups —Wise Men, and Shepherds— as representatives of general types.

Wise Men = Utopians.
Future-focused. Believers in the “myth of progress.” Putting their ultimate trust in systems like commerce, science, and even theology/philosophy…believers that humans can perhaps leave behind their limitations if only we leave behind our past.

Our world today is still full of them…from Alvin Toffler in the 1970s, to Elon Musk today…we are still being sold the lie that some kind of technical solution to humanity’s problems will fix us.

Maybe some new app.
Maybe some new pharmaceutical.
Maybe some new “open market” somewhere, that will magically bring capital and wealth to formerly impoverished peoples, and banish all suffering and pain.

And, of course, the Utopians are always somehow right. Our technological abilities, our scientific advances, the advances of finance, really do make millions of lives better, don’t they?

But, they are also somehow wrong too. Because no system is going to “save” us. Our human problem has never, for one day, been technological, or scientific, or finance-related.

Shepherds = Arcadians.
Past-focused. Hopelessly nostalgic. Those who pine for some better time in the past. Small town folks who never left their home, and fear the rest of the world.

To me, I think of the folks I know in small town Texas, who watch helplessly as hospitals and schools close, as the young leave for the big cities. I think of the political movements —yes, even MAGA— that yearn to make us great AGAIN…as if the past was somehow some idyllic place we need to return to.

Auden posits the Shepherds as cogs in the wheel…as those who never stray far from their homes…unlike the Wise Men, who launch out into their future.

From the moment we meet the three shepherds, they seem to be well aware of who they are, and just what we all think of them:

“THE FIRST SHEPHERD
The winter night requires our constant attention, Watching that water and good-will,
Warmth and well-being, may still be there in the morning.

THE SECOND SHEPHERD
For behind the spontaneous joy of life
There is always a mechanism to keep going,

THE THIRD SHEPHERD
And someone like us is always there.”



Someone like us…that waiter who served your food…or even the farmer who grew it. The garbage collector. The water company crew that fixes your sewer line. Working class folks. Union folks. Small town folks. The folks we increasingly don’t notice, honor, or support –financially, morally, or spiritually– but whom we assume will always show up and do their job.

These folks used to be the bedrock of the Democratic Party. But one of the geniuses of Donald Trump has been to convince working class folks —at least enough of them to win one election— that Democrats are actually “elites,” or that all traditional Republicans are also. That “long con” still gets me, all these years later: How an alleged billionare who’s made a lot of his wealth extracting from the poor, failing to pay contractors, suing those who oppose him…that somehow enough of the poor and working class believed him when he said “Only I can fix this.”

Or, maybe (as I’m fairly confident is true…) they didn’t believe him. But they just believe the system is so rigged, that they have been so forgotten, that “why the hell not” vote for a grifting TV real estate guy?

There is a despair and hopelessness loose in our streets that our present-day Utopians have helped us create. No, it’s not a global cabal “conspiracy.” Hillary Clinton never babies in the non-existent basement of a Washington DC pizzeria. JFK Jr. never came back, here at Dealey Plaza, to help Donald Trump retake the presidency. Nor, on the left, can yoga and deep breathing ward off COVID….and vaccines are not going to kill us all.

So many conspiracies on the right and left…so little time to debunk them all.

Where do they come from?

Increasingly, the middle class is shrinking. They know they’re not getting ahead. The wealthy and super wealthy continue to suck up all the oxygen and capital, and the poor and middle class are increasingly desperate.

Things like the opioid crisis, the water crisis in Flynt, cigarettes in a generation before….these things are real ways in which global elites really HAVE conspired to take advantage of every one else. They don’t sit in a cold, dark room, and spin out their “plots.” But the DO take every chance to take advantage of any “shock” (Naomi Klein’s conception) to make money and extract capital.

And yes, it can very easily start to feel like it’s all rigged.
And it is…it’s just not a conspiracy.

It’s not a “bug” (conspiracy), it’s a “feature.”

Auden’s shepherds are remarkable self aware. And they know just what the rich think of them:

“THE FIRST SHEPHERD
We observe that those who assure us their education
And money
would do us such harm,
How real we are
just as we are, and how they envy us,
For it is the centerless tree
And the uncivilised robin who are the truly happy,
Have done pretty well for themselves:

THE SECOND SHEPHERD
Nor can we help noticing how those who insist that
We ought to stand up for our rights,
And how important we are, keep insisting also
That it doesn’t matter a bit
If one of us gets arrested or injured, for It is only our numbers that count.

THE THIRD SHEPHERD
In away they are right,

THE FIRST SHEPHERD
But to behave like a cogwheel
When one knows one is no such thing,

THE SECOND SHEPHERD
Merely to add to a crowd with one’s passionate body,
Is not a virtue.

THE THIRD SHEPHERD
What is real
About us all is that each of us is waiting.”

These shepherd know their “place.”

And then, the angels appear to them with the good new of Jesus’ birth:

“Sing Glory to God
And good-will to men,
All, all, all of them.
Run to Bethlehem.”

Note how Auden phrases it: “All, all, all of them.”

All means all. If Christ’s incarnation means anything to anybody, it means everything to everybody.

Luke’s angels say that they bring “good tidings of great joy, which shall be the ALL people.”

Christians don’t OWN Christ’s incarnation, or have corner on the market for seeing God through other people. This powerful visitation benefits both Arcadians AND Utopians…the rich and the poor. People of all races, orientations, and economic circumstances.

And the shepherds —never ones to leave their homes— decide to launch out into the future:

Let us run to learn
How to love and run;
Let us run to Love.”

Which gets us to…

AT THE MANGER
(Section Six)

And now, all our characters come together. It’s like every nativity scene you’ve ever laid eyes on.

Mary, Joseph, and the baby are there.
The Wise Men have come.
The shepherds are there.

And they are all overcome by the presence of LOVE…by the power of incarnation…God and human combined as one.

Mary speaks a beautiful stanza about the limits of our human ability to parent, teach, and shape our children. She seems to be aware of the awesome responsibility before her, and the total inadequacy of her human abilities:

“O shut your bright eyes that mine must endanger
With their watchfulness; protected by its shade
Escape from my care: what can you discover
From my tender look but how to be afraid?
Love can but confirm the more it would deny.
Close your bright eye.

Sleep. What have you learned from the womb that bore you
But an anxiety your Father cannot feel?
Sleep. What will the flesh that I gave do for you,
Or my mother love, but tempt
you from His will?
Why was I chosen to teach His Son to weep?
Little One, sleep.

Dream. In human dreams earth ascends to Heaven
Where no one need pray nor ever feel alone.
In your first few hours of life here, O have you
Chosen already what death must be your own?
How soon will you start on the Sorrowful Way?
Dream while you may.”

Isn’t that just beautiful?

And now, we turn to those Wise Men and Shepherds.

The Wise Men…having journeyed for days and weeks, find the baby and declare:

“O here and now our endless journey stops.”

The Shepherds declare how they have taken the opposite path.
They’ve never left. They never started down any path.
And so their declaration is:

“O here and now our endless journey starts.”

See how Auden is playing them off?
Then, theser two groups start to play back and forth in the narrative…each declaring what this remarkable LOVE has done for them.

(Note: TUTTI indicates all of them speaking as one…)

Here’s what they say:

“WISE MEN
Our arrogant longing to attain the tomb,

SHEPHERDS
Our sullen wish to go back to the womb,

WISE MEN
To have no past,

SHEPHERDS
No future,

TUTTI (All speak together…)
Is refused.
And yet, without our knowledge,
Love has used
Our weakness as a guard and guide.

WISE MEN
Our lives’ impatience,

SHEPHERDS
Our lives’ laziness,

TUTTI (All speak together…)

And bless each other’s sin,
exchanging here

WISE MEN
Exceptional conceit

SHEPHERDS
With average fear.”

God’s incarnation gives to EACH the gifts and the love THEY need.

It’s not “one size fits all.” God comes to each as each has need, and appears to each in different forms. The next section continues the beautiful back and forth between Wise Men and Shepherds, as they each appear to confess their own faults…and also continue to be overcome by LOVE.

For what they are BOTH seeing is: the power of love —God’s love, human love, all of it together— to cut through all of their pretense and failures. The Wise Men suddenly see love in the particular and the mundane…the Shepherds suddenly become awake and stop sleepwalking through their lives.

And I’ll end today with a beautiful vision that Auden gives us of them connecting together, as they all say in unison:

“Released by Love from isolating wrong,
Let us for Love unite our various song,
Each with his gift according to his kind
Bringing this child his body and his mind.”

Let us, indeed, whoever we are, bring all of our bodies and minds to the child.

As Christina Rossetti writes in the incredible song, “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

“What can I give him?
Poor as I am
If I were a shepherd
I would give a lamb
If I were a wise man
I would do my part
But what I can I give him
Give him my heart.”