A Christmas Card for You

 

Dear Facebook Family and Friends at Christmastime,

Where can we find, in this moment of time, a message that will give us hope and encouragement in the midst of a pandemic?Can the Christmas message breakthrough in spite of our fears, our struggles, and yes, even our despair? Cherie and I find such a message  in the third stanza of “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.”  The words give us hope and encouragement in the midst of the Coronavirus, Cherie’s diagnosis of cancer, and all the fears, struggles, and despair that we experience along our way.

“And 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.  O rest beside the weary

road, and hear the angels sing.”

Howard Thurman wrote, “Despite all of the crassness of life, despite all of the hardness of life, despite all of the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels.” Look now! Stop now! Listen now! Can you hear the singing?  “O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing!”

The angel song is somewhat muted in the midst of life’s crushing load, our toil along the climbing way, and our slow and painful steps, but ....

    “Still through the cloven skies they come with peaceful wings unfurled, 

      and still their heavenly music floats o’er all the weary world; 

      above its sad and lowly plains, they bend on hovering wing, 

      and ever over its Babel sounds the blessed angels sing.”

The angels are singing now.  Their message:  Love is at the heart of things—all things—at all times.

Merry Christmas