Here we Come a Caroling!

A few days ago a group from our company visited the local nursing home to sing Christmas carols, an annual ritual we have been following for a number of years. The experience was wonderful for us and for our hearers, many of whom mouthed the words to the songs along with us. I reflected that Christmas carols in this Christian country of ours are our folk songs, a common possession that helps to bring us together as a Christian community, no matter how much our intellectual betters deny it.

Christmas carols date from the early days of the church. My memory of caroling goes back to childhood, and I enjoy taking part in caroling today, as I did with our Burmese friends last week. In our company's caroling, we sang in english, german and spanish. I recommended to our Laotian Mung employees that they prepare some Mung songs for us to sing next year. They informed me that Christianity among the Mung tribes in Laos dates from the French missionaries of the 1950's, and that their Christmas songs are the same as ours.

The creche, caroling, all the trappings of Christmas celebration, are the center of our national experience, no matter how secular they have become. Intrepid atheists have only "negative ads" to offer, and so their "gifts" fall on deaf ears. I and, I think, all of us, will keep coming back to the rich, lovely music that celebrates God's gift of his Son, in love, to us, living in this hurting world, longing for hope.

Have a Merry, a happy, hopeful, joyful, prayerful, Christmas!

Listen to Sinead O'Connor sing "Silent Night."

Listen to John Denver singing "Little Drummer Boy"

Listen to "O Little Town of Bethlehem."

Listen to Celtic Woman sing "Oh Come All Ye Faithful."

Listen to Vienna Choir Boys' Adeste Fidelis.

Listen to Celine Dion "O Holy Night"

Another version of "O Holy Night" by a seven year old!

Another version of "O Holy Night" by Susan Boyle.

Listen to "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night."