The Challenge of a Silent Night.
Here we are on the cusp of another Christmass. At this time of year it’s easy to be diagnosed with the disease ‘sensory overload.’
This is a highly infectious disease and passes quickly from one to another, especially in congested areas like supermarkets and dining establishments. There is no immunisation against this debilitating malaise and only enforced isolation, space and the turning off of all screens, can temporarily relieve the symptoms.
The carol ‘Silent night’ would be a script for the medicine we so desperately need at this time. The call to silence and peace is easy to write about, hard to hear and well nigh on impossible to put into practice.
To stop. Just stop! And focus on the maiden, manger and child. To think about nothing else … nothing at all, is an exercise for the wise and the courageous.
This is my 64th Christmass and I would have hoped for the bombs to have stopped falling, political rhetoric to be quietened and the calming vocabulary of silence to blanket us. To speak of peace on earth and good will to everyone. Why can’t we achieve this? But then a quick look at my own frenzied activity, the rubber tyres and barbed wire of doubt and edginess in my heart, the speed with which I think that if only old so and so would…
Silent night must start deep within me. The wise old carol calls me back to a higher ideal and the imperative to persistently keep on trying.
May you make the time, space to have a silent night. Instead of the discarded wrapping paper and the credit card debt, may you see what the shepherds saw. Angels and the fresh hope for all people, asleep on the hay.