I've always enjoyed Christmas music. Years of church Christmas programs, as a child, teen, young adult through more recent years have given me a host of memories of a deepening understanding, even on the most challenging Christmas Eves.
Some lyrics are very old, even some traditional music I have sung in Latin and the original language singing of Silent Night Holy Night (Lutheran parochial school) and the more contemporary "light" music that touches my heart and tends my soul.
But today I'm thinking about Noël Regney and Gloria Shayne. In 1962 they were asked to write a Christmas song but were uncomfortable adding to the growing commercialism of Christmas and during a time of increasing Cold War tensions, a growing involvement in Vietnam, and the Berlin Wall growing stronger daily. As they undertook the work the Cuban Missile Crisis was looming over them. This background gave me a new perspective on the final verse:
Listen to what I say!
Pray for peace, people everywhere.
Listen to what I say!
The Child, the Child sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light.
In the midst of the political rhetoric, world unrest, restless financial markets, unimaginable incarceration rates, broken families and broken cities, this speaks to my breaking heart, reminds me of Who is actually in power, and charges me to live intentionally today and everyday.
With that in mind, I expect to get a good nights' sleep, grateful that I have not been left in charge, and so passionately grateful my God is!
Some lyrics are very old, even some traditional music I have sung in Latin and the original language singing of Silent Night Holy Night (Lutheran parochial school) and the more contemporary "light" music that touches my heart and tends my soul.
But today I'm thinking about Noël Regney and Gloria Shayne. In 1962 they were asked to write a Christmas song but were uncomfortable adding to the growing commercialism of Christmas and during a time of increasing Cold War tensions, a growing involvement in Vietnam, and the Berlin Wall growing stronger daily. As they undertook the work the Cuban Missile Crisis was looming over them. This background gave me a new perspective on the final verse:
Listen to what I say!
Pray for peace, people everywhere.
Listen to what I say!
The Child, the Child sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light.
In the midst of the political rhetoric, world unrest, restless financial markets, unimaginable incarceration rates, broken families and broken cities, this speaks to my breaking heart, reminds me of Who is actually in power, and charges me to live intentionally today and everyday.
With that in mind, I expect to get a good nights' sleep, grateful that I have not been left in charge, and so passionately grateful my God is!
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