{"id":12,"date":"2006-12-21T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-21T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2006\/12\/o-holy-night.html"},"modified":"2006-12-21T11:30:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-21T11:30:00","slug":"o-holy-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2006\/12\/o-holy-night.html","title":{"rendered":"O Holy Night!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking of beautiful verses, I wept today, like I always do, when I heard my very favorite Christmas song, “O Holy Night<\/a>.” The combination of its gorgeous lyrics and affective melody seep into the hardened parts of my heart in a way that only music can.<\/p>\n

I closed my eyes (only for a second since I was driving) and sang the words in my very ugly voice as a prayer to the heavens. I thought about all those times I played the song on our upright piano in the family room–banging on the keys as a form of meditation to tune out my parents’ fighting, to console my scared fourth-grade self, to invoke God’s peace on a ruptured family.<\/p>\n

This song had to be inspired by God himself, even though it was written by poet Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure (yes, he’s French and sold wine…ah, maybe it was <\/em> the spirits) and composed by Adolphe Charles Adams (Placide’s musician buddy) because whenever I hear it I immediately feel love. Especially when I get to the seventh line:<\/p>\n

“Fall on your knees, O hear the angels voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!”<\/p>\n

Those three lines are what Christmas is to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaking of beautiful verses, I wept today, like I always do, when I heard my very favorite Christmas song, “O Holy Night.” The combination of its gorgeous lyrics and affective melody seep into the hardened parts of my heart in a way that only music can. 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