Calm, Christmas Carols and Coffee

Sweet Comfort

Listening to Christmas carols, enjoying a cup of coffee, calm is more often the tone in our mornings. Nobody rushes to go anywhere.

When I turn the radio on during the run-up to Christmas, I hear sounds that are as stunning as Christmas lights. The classical music stations, like WETA, 90.9, and especially WRR in Dallas, are broadcasting non-stop the glorious music, secular and religious that reminds me to look up – look out; look away from my silly old self!

As one radio host commented, these selections sure beat Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.  Yes, Barry Samsula, the classical stations’ selections surely do that!

For example, I am listening to a guitar solo arrangement of The Christmas Song, that embodies so many emotions that the Christmas season provokes. After a serene secular Christmas melody, I hear a familiar carol – or one that has been around for centuries, I never knew like Watt’s Cradle Hymn.

Christmas Music

The words combine and swell in harmonies and phrases that stir my emotions, and calm my heart – they are symphonic sermons – reminding me how many souls down through the centuries have wondered as we wander this wonderful old world, what child is this?

Real Comfort

God knows I struggle with the mystery of why and how He intersected this world – my world.  So, being able to engage with how other people have understood Christ’s coming, His birth, and purpose delights my old brain and creaky heart.

. . . O ye beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow;
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing. . . (It Came Upon a Midnight Clear)

Ancient comfort for current troubles, the carols streaming through secular radio stations remind me the heavens declare the glory of God. (Psalm 19)   Look away from today’s troubles and diversion, oh my soul, and listen. The Christmas programming is a welcome gift: art for my ears and my heart.

In this crazy, backwards world, here’s some GOOD NEWS that isn’t a mistake!

God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. (John 3:17, The Message)

Here’s a bit of comfort — a blast from 1971 — Merry! Happy?

Who is Jesus?~ Billy Graham