BONUS BLOG: Glad Tidings

From online friend and colleague, Pastor Becca Girrell comes this; I know we’re going to sing this on the first Sunday of Advent in the congregation to which I’m appointed. Trelawney wrote the lyrics —-

Jenn Peterson told me that she was having trouble singing the hymn O Little Town of Bethlehem this year, and she asked me to rewrite it. So I did. Here are my words. I find it important to remember that the Christmas story is a story of a very dark, bloody, and terrifying time of trauma, anguish, and death, and that is why the story was so powerful for the people who told it and heard it 2000 years ago. In the face of crushing despair and horrifying massacres by occupying armies, the people found symbols of hope, resistance, and divine strength with them and through them, a light shining in the darkness and lighting the Way to a better world.
P.S. please feel free to share. ♥️🙏🏽

O Little Town of Bethlehem

O little town of Bethlehem,
So still in our minds’ eye
With candle lights and starlit nights,
And angels drawing nigh.
Yet in thy dark streets soundeth
The echoed wails of grief,
Of ancient fears, of bombs and tears,
Of agony and strife.

For Christ was born of Mary
And Joseph, born in love;
But soldiers came, in someone’s name,
With something left to prove.
So Mary brought up Jesus
In lands broken and cursed,
To preach and sing of no more kings,
Of peace to all the Earth.

How desperately, how desperately
That peace is needed now,
Which Love imparts to human hearts
To flower and to grow.
Our ears are numbed by anguish,
Cries from this world of sin.
Our weak souls yearn to feel the burn
Of Sacred Power within.

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Reveal to us thy Way
Of justice, peace, and healing Grace;
Be born in us today.
We are the Christmas angels;
Help us glad tidings tell.
O walk with us, shine forth through us:
Each one, Emmanuel!