First of all, I feel I should warn you (the horror!) that it’s possible I may not be posting tomorrow. I am scheduled for minor surgery involving my vision, and will just have to see whether I’m in shape to work a computer or not.
I would appreciate your prayers if you think of it, but they assure me it’s a common procedure and the risks are low. (At least that’s how I choose to interpret it.)
So, tonight – another Christmas carol. Not Sissel, I’m afraid. She doesn’t seem to have done this one. There are performances by the Heretic Tabernacle Choir, but I don’t want to give them more business than I already have done. There are English choir versions, but the English sing it to the wrong tune (I believe that was a major reason for the unpleasantness of 1776).
At last I found a nice one by the Hillsdale College Choir. That will do.
I remember that when I was a kid, my first favorite Christmas hymn was “Away in the Manger” (erroneously believed, at the time, to have been written by Martin Luther). It’s a kid’s carol, and one of the first songs I ever learned by heart.
Then, some years later, I remember, I decided I preferred “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”
I’ve gone on to other favorite Christmas hymns since that time, but I still favor the Little Town, in a general way.
It was written by Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), an Episcopal priest who eventually became bishop of Massachusetts. (According to Wikipedia, he introduced Helen Keller to both Christianity and Annie Sullivan.) He said he wrote it after visiting the Holy Land, and Bethlehem on Christmas night. I recall reading an anecdote that after his death, a little girl in his congregation is supposed to have said, “How happy the angels will be to have him in Heaven!”