"With Peace on Earth, Good-will to Men!"

It's been a very full two weeks back in Virginia-  visiting with old friends, meeting new. I've attended wonderful concerts, done more shopping than I probably needed and had much more pampering than I ever expected.  My hostess is extraordinarily generous and I've enjoyed fabulous food, a quiet room and gifts galore.   But most of all she and I have had lots of long conversations and quiet reflections.

That's what I'll remember from this trip. Heart to heart communication- the beauty of community. Rich and deep and heartfelt. Silly and full of belly laughs. Tears and touching hands.

I've attended a memorial service and shared in the sorrows of several dear friends. Pain and death are an affront in this season of "Ho, Ho, Ho" but there is always death before new life, before resurrection. Christmas is the birth of a Holy Baby, but that birth leads to the cross and death .

 I sat with my friend in the shadow of her pain. The bells rang and the choir sang-

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

We no longer sing the two middle verses but Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote this classic holiday carol during great personal and national tragedy. A few years earlier, his wife had died from a fire that scarred Longfellow's face. Then he brought his young son home with his own scars from the Civil War.   There was sorrow and suffering in his life but Longfellow could eventually look forward- to the peace we all long for.

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Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said:
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

                                   
 Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

"God is not dead nor doth he sleep, The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail" does not happen without the sorrows of the Cross. Peace on earth comes from the goodwill of God but it came with a price. He came to share our human experience, including suffering.  We don't want to accept pain and rejection. We don't want to embrace suffering. But only when the seed, buried in the cold, dark earth, is split open can new life come forth.

Peace on earth- peace in our hearts and lives....only comes when we can embrace the death that leads to the life we crave. Like a seed buried and transformed by spring,  our story doesn't have to end in sorrow from the death of our loved ones, marriages, or dreams.  From that death, new life can come again.

                                 

So let the bells ring. 

And for those who are cannot rejoice in the bells this Christmas Day, 

   

I bless you with peace

and

 pray you good-will.