Seventy years ago, a woman entered a Woolworths store with her young son. She was there to buy some aspirin and other medications for her daughter who was feeling ill. It was mid-December, the weather was cold and snowy in Brooklyn NY, and the bus ride had been slow and bumpy. The boy was feeling grumpy, but as they entered the store, he felt much better. It was his first time in such a big store, and there was so much to see.

And also to hear. There was music playing, songs his mother had warned him about. “This is Christmas season” she told him on the bus. He had heard of Christmas from his friends on the block, but didn’t really know what it meant, except that kids got presents, and he had seen Christmas trees. His mother told him that he would hear songs about Jesus and God, but “we don’t believe in any of that” and he shouldn’t feel bad about missing any of it, because its all about making people buy things they don’t need.

Like many things his family told him, he only half understood, but the message was clear – ignore what you see and hear, there is nothing good about it. In fact, the music blaring from the speakers in the store was loud and annoying. The words were silly – all about bells and sleighs (an object of unknown nature to him)  and drums, and reindeer, and he tuned it out, while standing online at the cashier with his mother.

But then another song began to play, a quiet and slow one, without any noisy instrumental music. A soft voice sang, “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.” He stood stock still listening, trying to grasp the words, and the melody filled him with…something. Something brand new in his young life. Again, he heard the refrain “all is calm” and he sighed with a sense of peace that was also new. He had rarely felt calm, and yet this song seemed to promise him that being calm was possible.

On the bus ride home, he remembered some of the other lyrics of the song and asked his mother “What’s virgin mean?” She shook her head, “Pay no attention to that nonsense. All of this Christmas stuff is just to keep capitalism alive.”  He nodded. He already knew that while Christmas day would bring no presents, he would get his presents a week later on New Years, just like the children in the Soviet Union.

Trudging home from the bus stop he thought about the gaudy, garish lights and the frenetic chaos of the store and was glad to be back in the relatively quiet snow-bound street. And the words again came to him with the melody “All is calm, all is bright.“ And although he could not possibly have known it at the time, the Holy Spirit had in that moment come to his soul.

Seven decades passed in the blink of an eye, and now that same soul is typing these words, listening to the same song, and praying his everlasting thanks and hallelujah to the baby born on Christmas day who brought peace and calm, along with everlasting joy and salvation into the world, and even unto me.

Merry Christmas to all.