All is Calm

This morning, I woke to a mind already chattering with its list of last minute holiday preparations and I couldn't seem to clear my head.  A little later, out walking through the neighborhood with Shamus my dog, the words to my favorite Christmas hymn floated into my awareness:  "Silent Night, Holy Night, All is Calm, All is Bright...", just as the sun peaked out from the clouds and the faint dusting of snow lit up like sparkling diamonds.  Suddenly, the flurry of busyness that had plagued me disappeared in the clarity of the moment.  The message was clear: stop, pause, reflect on the silent beauty that runs like a current behind the facade of the frantic pace of conscious life and be thankful for all.

As I reflected on the song that inspired my change of heart this morning, I looked up its origins, which I had heard a little of before.  "Silent Night, Holy Night" was composed by Joseph Muhr and Franz Gruber in Obendorf bei Salzburg, Austria in 1818.  One beautiful, clear night in the weeks before Christmas, Joseph Muhr was walking along the river and stopped to gaze at the water,  meditating and envisioning the beauty of the first Christmas.  The lyrics to the hymn came to him as a flood of inspiration and he asked his friend and fellow musician Gruber to help him compose music to go along with the words.  They performed the song by guitar at Christmas Mass of that year and the rest, as they say, is history.

This Christmas, may we each find time to be still, to affirm that "all is calm, all is bright" and to be filled with the peace that passes all understanding.