gifts and silence

Merry Christmas, everyone! More technically, happy Boxing day, but being as it's still Christmas in a few other parts of the world, I guess I can still post this...

Buried in our hard drive somewhere, in the midst of our 18.2 days worth of music on iTunes (seriously, how did people live in Other Places before we had computers?) are 20 to 30 albums worth of Christmas music that I've had playing in rotation on our laptop when the thought crosses my mind that yes, maybe it would be good for our kids to recognize the fact that, yes, "Silent Night" is actually about the story of Christmas. (Or, as Ysa put it, "Daddy! This song is a Jesus song too!")

Also in the mix is Bruce Cockburn's rendering of "O, Little Town of Bethlehem", a carol that I'd previously exiled to the category of "incredibly schlocky and overly sentimental songs that I put up with anyway, because after all, it is Christmas." I mean, come on, I've lived in a Little Town, and - "how still we see the lie"?? Little towns are still because they're BORING BORING BORING, folks!! And, come on, what baby has a "deep and dreamless sleep" ? In a manger? In a town packed with drunken partying census-takers? Seriously, folks...

But then after all the sentimental setting in the song, verse three sneaks up:

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.

If you're just skimming along this blog before you check out your emails and the weather report and the traffic before you head off to work, stop for a bit. Now read those lines again, especially the first two. (Feel free to make any substitutions in the last two lines, depending on your ideas of God's gender, views of the afterlife, religious persuasion or lack thereof.) I was wanting to do some more explaining about how amazing they are, but then it wouldn't be silent, would it?

Merry Christmas!