December, 2000 Monthly Feature : Each month I have been putting together some of my favourites to share with you. Archives
A Christmas Carol
[ O weary, weary were the world, But here is all aright. |
G.K. Chesterton ]
There's always a particular moment when it comes. Every year. Christmas, that is. Sometimes it is when you find the perfect gift for someone you love and you bring it home and wrap it up carefully and hide it. Other years it is the moment that you hang the last decoration on the tree and stand back and turn the lights on. Whatever the moment is for you, it is always a minute that's special and private - and then Christmas is there. It's come for you. Happiness breaks over you in brilliant, prismatic splendor. All finite things dissolve, the horizons of the earth roll back, the firmament immeasurably deepens.
Most years, for me, Christmas comes in a moment of song. There is nothing quite like music when it comes to evoking the spirit of Christmas. Transforming the season into something magical, bringing festive warmth and cheer - music has always played an essential part in my holidays. It may be the day the radio stations begin playing Christmas songs, or the first clear note raised to a starry sky when caroling on a cold December night, or perhaps the first strain of Handel's Messiah coming from a church choir at a candle-lit service. Whatever it is, in that moment I can hear that strange music which falls upon the inner ear at this time of year, all the voices of all the angels sing in my head, and every beat of every heart resounds in mine. In this moment, I am dizzied by the ability to see what cannot be seen by the outer eye, to see beyond the little limitations of the human orb into the extensions of the spirit. All is right, and all is well.
Happy Christmas
K.M.G.
|
Christmas
The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymn for Thee?
My soul's a shepherd too; a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.
The pasture is Thy word: the streams, Thy grace
Enriching all the place.
Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers
Outsing the daylight hours.
Then will we chide the sun for letting night
Take up his place and right:
We sing one common Lord; wherefore he should
Himself the candle hold.
I will go searching, till I find a sun
Shall stay, till we have done;
A willing shiner, that shall shine as gladly,
As frost-nipped suns look sadly.
Then will we sing, and shine all our own day,
And one another pay:
His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,
Till ev'n His beams sing, and my music shine.
George Herbert |
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