Burns Night or Cruising with Filipinos

Because today is the birthday of Robert Burns, Scottish poet (1759), there will be suppers tonight in his honor. It's Burns Night.

Burns Suppers, sometimes hosted by Masons because the poet was a Mason, are organized and structured. They usually begin with a welcome and announcement and the Selkirk Grace, which goes like this:

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae the Lord be thankit.

Then, accompanied by bagpipes, the host brings out the haggis, making a big production of the thing. Someone recites Address to a Haggis while the thing is cut open, and then they eat it. After dinner and review of the life and works of Robert Burns, everyone attending sings Auld Lang Syne, written by Burns himself.

Up until this point I can't relate. I haven't memorized any Burns poetry, and the idea of eating haggis is anything but appetizing. But the singing of Auld Lang Syne—well, that I know.

On new year's eve, when we were on the cruise ship, we had dinner and then went to the theater for the evening's entertainment. It was a variety show with singing and dancing as usual, but then about ten Filipino crew members mostly from industrial sections of the ship, came out and sang a traditional holiday song from the Philippines. These were guys who stoked the furnace and swabbed the deck, so to speak, and weren't usually on stage, but they sang their hearts out like they were all giving us a gift, and it was amazing.

When they were finished, the audience stood, people who represented more than forty countries, and we all joined in singing Auld Lang Syne. I couldn't think of a better way to welcome in the new year. To get a taste of that experience again, I'd go looking for a Burns Supper this evening as long as I didn't have to taste the haggis, too.