It Came Upon a Midnight Clear... Very Slowly -- Day 7

Christmas Angel: Good Tidings of Great Joy!
By Heart Rivers Art on Flickeriver.com

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,
From heaven's all-gracious King."
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.

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 o'er its Babel sounds
The blessèd angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

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!

For lo!, the days are hastening on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the age of gold
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

"Angel" by Abbot Thayer

Folk who work in the church call the Sunday after Christmas a "low-Sunday," meaning that attendance is usually very low.  I never understood why, because the Sunday after Christmas is still Christmastide (which means the 12 days of Christmas), so while the rest of the world is woefully putting their decorations away, in the Church we keep the party going, the decorations up, and Christmas carols playing!  What's more, in many churches, the Sunday after Christmas is "Lessons and Carols," which means we scrap the sermon and instead fill the service with lots of snippets of the Christmas story interspersed with all the best Christmas carols!  One Christmas in Boston, the church where I worshipped at the time had hired a guest musician to play Lessons and Carols the Sunday after Christmas.  As we say in Texas, "bless her heart," but she wasn't a very lively organist.  I came to church pumped to sing all my favorite carols, but -- bless her heart -- she played each one like a funeral dirge!  It took so long to sing the word "Gloria" in the chorus of "Angels We Have Heard on High," that I almost passed out.

But then when we came to "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," my exasperation at our excruciatingly slow tempo melted away... because suddenly I noticed the gorgeous poetry of the text like I never had before.  As a music person, I often focus on the melodies and harmonies, barely even noticing the words that I'm singing.  Slowing down allowed me to hear the carol in a completely new way, adding deep meaning to what was normally just a fun singalong.  Our guest musician -- bless her heart -- may not have had the best sense of tempo, but she ministered to me in a way I'll never forget nonetheless.

I wonder, how could you slow down this holiday season?  What might you discover?   What might you see in a new way?  Could you take time to just sit and stare at your Christmas tree or fireplace?  Could you take the time to copy parts of the old familiar Christmas story by hand, so that you might visit each word in a fresh and intentional way?  What about simply baking your treats or wrapping your gifts mindfully, as if you were doing these things for the Christ child himself?  As our carol tells us all, "O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing!"