Nicole’s e-Pistle

December 11, 2024

Greetings, friends!

During this second week of Advent we are celebrating the promise of peace, though the world feels anything but peaceful. After hearing news of the fall of the Syrian government, the cease fire between Hezbollah and Israel, the continued war in Ukraine, and countless other rebellions and terrorist attacks around the world, my mind was drawn to another time when the promising peace of Christmas seemed overshadowed by violence and war.

As most of you probably already know, there is a Christmas carol based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. At the outset of the Civil War in 1861, Longfellow had witnessed the death of his wife in a tragic fire, which he himself tried to put out, before his son went against his wishes and joined the 1st Massachusetts Artillery. Two years later, in 1863, his son was  seriously, though they would learn later, not fatally, wounded in battle. Amid all this pain and worry, Longfellow wrote his poem “Christmas Bells.” I invite you to read the poem in its entirety below, and if you so choose, listen HERE to my favorite rendition of the carol by Casting Crowns:

May your Christmas season be filled with God’s peace, which comforts us no matter the circumstances of our lives or of our world…

Christmas Bells

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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!

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.”

Blessings,