By Shannon Page

Oh, no one else is happily
Recklessly asking for more than
What they may need
I can’t say what I need

Something deep in my bones is allergic to neediness. I recoil at the thought of openly wanting, of asking for more than what I’ve been given. To express a naked desire, I may as well be naked.

The shame of desire is embedded in my DNA, a family inheritance. Generations of my family hail from Maine and New Hampshire, people of rocky shores and granite quarries, who immigrated from colder, icier places like Sweden and Finland. To make one’s home in such brutal places, one survived on self-reliance, discipline, and frugality.

Perhaps this Scandi-New England ethos is best illustrated by the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper. The industrious ant labors all spring, summer, and fall to store enough food for the winter. Meanwhile, the indulgent grasshopper relaxes in the sun and plays his fiddle. When winter comes, harsh and cold, the grasshopper runs out of food and resorts to begging at the ant’s door. In some versions of the story, the ant takes pity and receives his neighbor in charity, but in other versions, he shuts the door in the face of the shameful beggar.

My dad told me that the tale he heard from his Finnish grandmother had an even crueler twist: the ant sends the grasshopper away hungry, and so the grasshopper dies of starvation. The winter is so long and so bitter that even the ant runs out of food. Ever resourceful, he survives by eating the grasshopper’s carcass.

Even in death, the beggar suffers humiliation.

This is a story I carry.

So, when Sufjan Stevens’ voice finally erupts on “Barcarola (You Must Be a Christmas Tree),” ringing out over the strings and the backing vocals, with an “oh” of desperation, I feel the haunt of desire and the lurch of shame in my stomach.

“Oh, no one else is happily, recklessly asking for more than what they may need.”

I imagine a teenage narrator speaking to himself, echoing the voices he has heard all his life, telling him that to ask for something, to make oneself needy is a deep humiliation. Maybe he is making a Christmas list. Here, he has a chance to be greedy without consequence, but he can’t shake the feeling of guilt and unworthiness. What’s wrong with you? Why are you such a burden? Can’t you be satisfied with what you have? No one else is behaving this way. Why should you deserve something more?

Because, of course, this is about something deeper than a Christmas list. Despite his recklessness and excess, he isn’t able to voice his desire. “I can’t say what I need” is the next line. I wonder if the narrator can name what he needs even to himself in secret, or has he repressed his wants for so long that it is no longer identifiable to him? Maybe his needs are so pent up that his Christmas list becomes a sanctioned and appropriate outlet for all his reckless, repressed desires. The list of material items grows longer, yet he can’t name what he really needs: to love and be loved.

To ask for love risks the greatest humiliation.

I wonder, too, if the narrator is queer. I can’t help but read into the narrative what Sufjan has shared of his own personal romantic life and years of fan discourse and memes about whether his music is gay or about God. To imagine that he is queer adds another dimension to the story: his desire may be dangerous. I wonder if in his desire he risks abandonment and rejection, not only from the object of his affection, but from his family, community, especially a religious community, and friends. I wonder if he has internalized the homophobia around him, and that only compounds his unworthiness and shame.

As the story in “Barcarola” unfolds, unvoiced desire and accompanying shame follow.

The narrator’s grandmother chides him for saying too much. She wears her heart on her sleeve, but she advises her grandson to keep his cards closer to the chest: if you can’t say something nice and palatable, it’s better to be silent.

Then the narrator makes an innocent but devastating mistake: he leaves a door open, and the dog escapes into the cold. The haunting vocals on the line “Where did he go?” make me think the dog is lost forever. Consumed with self-loathing, the narrator wonders if a “father friend” will punish him. Maybe the dog belonged to his friend, maybe the friend he loves secretly. The humiliation reaches its peak when his friend’s father looks at him with disdain and contempt. A look so awful, he’s tried to block it from his memory.

Maybe the narrator runs away too, fleeing the house, because a “you” in the narrative, the friend maybe, finds him, and connects with him. He invites him back. The same “you” must be a Christmas tree, because to the narrator, he lights up the room with warmth, love, and desire.

“Suddenly,” the friend kisses the narrator and tickles him, risking affection. But the mother sees and looks away, covering her face, embarrassed by the display of affection. The internal embarrassment the narrator feels for his affection is confirmed, at least in his mind, by an outsider.

And then, there’s a loss, a parting. Maybe time has passed, and the relationship has run its course. The narrator risked his love and affection, his desire to love and be loved. Now he is no longer needed by his lover.

The loss of the runaway dog and the runaway friend intertwine in a way that is painfully sad, mixing the humiliation of an awful mistake with the humiliation of rejection: “Don’t run away my friend / you won’t be back again / you said, you needed me / But I know that you needed yourself to be cleaned of me.”

This line is repeated again and again, and as it does, the music swells and builds momentum, with layers of strings and percussion. It’s as if there is a crescendo of confidence so that at the end of the vocals, a final “I know” hangs in the air, incomplete. It’s not an ending. It’s an assertion of a lesson learned. He’s still here. Shame did not consume him.

At the children’s shoe store, I had already spent what felt like an unfathomable amount on a pair of tiny leather shoes when my toddler saw him: a stuffed penguin hanging at eye level. She reached for his soft plush body, took him in her arms, rubbed her cheek against his, and looked at me with eyes so big they could be in a cartoon.

“Mama, I yuv it,” she said.

I laughed and shook my head. “Oh sweetie, penguin lives here, in the store. We’re going home. Say bye-bye!”

She rubbed the penguin to her cheek again and looked at me with such a vulnerable display of longing, such a wordless plea. A tiny smile of hope. She knew—innately or already in her two years—that I held the power to say yes or say no, but her face was the pure hope of a yes.

I took my credit card back out of my wallet. She fell asleep in the car with her penguin wrapped tightly in her arms.

To receive the trust of my daughter’s pure and open desire felt tender. I wanted to hold it with care and reverence. No, I cannot always give her what she wants—that would not be safe or prudent or fair to society. And of course, sometimes what she wants is unreasonable and impossible, and I get frustrated. But I love her. I want to give her the world. I want her to know she deserves the world. I never want her to feel shame. I know she will experience rejection and humiliation. I know someone will make her feel unworthy. I know somewhere she’ll hear the story that self-sufficiency is god and to ask, desire, to beg is death.

But I hope in spite of this, she retains that tender toddler hope, that she is worthy of her desire.

Maybe this is the stuff of faith. It’s a trust that, in spite of cruel winters and certain death, the universe is abundant. In spite of hatred, rejection, and abandonment, there is love. The universe wants, longs, to love me, to drop a gift into my humble lap.

We don’t earn this gift or this love. We don’t have to be good. We don’t have to be self-sufficient. We only take the risk of accepting love and loving in return.

And isn’t that the story of Christmas? That the God of the universe, the ultimate giver of life, makes Godself known in creation: not as a king with the power to grant, but as the neediest creature possible: an infant of about seven pounds, who can do nothing productive but cry and scream and demand that his needs be met. An infant that can only survive on the love and care of others. In Jesus, ultimate power is met with ultimate vulnerability. To give and to receive are holy.

You must be a Christmas tree. Light up the room with desire, with hope.

Shannon Page is an Episcopal priest and a devoted Sufjan Stevens fan since The O.C. soundtrack. She would get a Carrie & Lowell-inspired tattoo if she were braver. She lives in Chicago with her husband and toddler. She especially enjoys writing and thinking about the intersection of art, music, and faith. You can find her at @shannonly24 on Instagram.