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What I love about this carol is its deep sense of place. It transports the birth of Jesus into a forest, among hunters, with rabbit skins and beaver pelts. It is the nativity of Christ saturated and mystified under moon of French and Canadian 17th century hills.
"Swaddling clothes become rabbit skin, the manger is a lodge of broken bark, the wise men are chiefs, and the gifts they bring are not frankincense and myrrh but gifts of fox and beaver pelt. The point is not to alter the truth but to tell it: 'the holy child of earth and heaven is born today for you,' whoever and wherever you are" (Paul Westermeyer, Hymnal Companion for ELW)
"This is the earliest 'first nations' Christmas carol and the earliest Canadian hymn we know about. It can be traced to Jean de Brébeuf, Jesuit priest and missionary... Jesse Edgar Middleton, a journalist born in Ontario wrote this free English rendering of it, which contains more Huron imagery than the original."
The tune itself is a French noël, "Une jeune pucelle de noble coeur." It has influences of the same period, but the underlying musical material likely predates the sixteenth-century Reformation (which may be why it sounds like the Dwarves Song).
I used Garageband to record the track, and did some sleight vocal effects.
, Richard Lischer: Before becoming a professor of homiletics, Lischer was the pastor of a small rural congregation in southern Illinois. Open Secrets details his first three years of ministry, witnessing the joys and challenges that come from transitioning from university to parish life.
, Barbara Brown Taylor: These are Taylor's early reflections on ministry as an Episcopalian priest, followed by 13 sample sermons from her exemplary career as a literate and thoughtful preacher.
, Dave Gibbons: Although not strictly a memoir, Gibbons weaves enough of his own story into the text that you get a powerful sense of what it means to be a missional pastor in the 21st century.
: I'm probably biased, because this is the founding pastor of East Koshkonong Lutheran Church, where I previously served as pastor, but this travel narrative gives a profound sense of the early immigrant church and the role of the pastor in that context.
, Eugene Peterson: Peterson weaves his own story into many of his books, and he has written lots of wonderful books on the pastoral ministry, but this may be the most refreshing, especially for pastors learning to self-differentiate.
, George Herbert: This is the the classic of the genre, and though it is sometimes difficult and very distant in time and tone, it is worth the time.
, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: More a memoir and theological treatise on Christian community than the life of the pastor per se, this book about the underground life of the seminary Bonhoeffer led during the Third Reich is seminal, and worth reading many, many times over.
by Stanley Hauerwas and 
by Jurgen Moltmann: Two of our greatest living theologians have written wonderful autobiographies, and they help place the work of a a theologian in the context of life in a way that will bear fruit for thoughtful readers who care about theology.
, Lillian Daniel and Martin Copenhaver: This is probably the most recent book published under the genre of "pastoral memoir", and it is unique in weaving the story of two pastors together, chapter after chapter. This is a really creative way to team-author a book.
, Wendell Berry: Ok, this isn't a memoir, it's a novel, and it isn't about a pastor, it's about a barber. But I'm telling you, you might learn more about being a pastor from this book than any other book on the list.
, Marilynne Robinson: This is a novel, but it actually is about a pastor, or more properly, it's letters from an aging pastor to his young son.
, Will Willimon: This is kind of like the comprehensive handbook for pastors, and the accompanying volume, a reader, is worth acquiring and reading together with Willimon's textbook.
