Silent Night - Geeze-Louise! Who Came Up with That?

Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace

Silent night, holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ, the Savior is born
                                                        Christ, the Savior is born... SCREeeeeeeeeeeeEEECH! 

 

WAIT A MINUTE..pull the needle off the record player... "Silent night?"...Who came up with that? Yeah, everything could have been bright, but calm? Come on, I know I'm only 12, but I'm not stupid enough to buy that!  

 

About 6 months ago, Tommy and I were around the corner and this hippie couple were having a baby at home. Let me tell you - (after that experience - I don't recommend it), there was nothing silent night or calm about it.  The lady was screaming and the long-haired-hippie husband ran around like he was being attacked by our Veloci-Rooster.  He was shouting out for us to boil hot water and was frantically getting newspaper and towels and she was laying on the ground holding on to a door handle - grunting and pushing with her face turning red.  He was hysterical and ironically begging her (in hippie speak) to be calm...!  

 

"Like, mellow out, man."  "Don't be sweating it, you know...it's all right." "Think of flowers and peace and love...man"  and other stupid stuff like "far out and out of sight"

 

This really bugged me. Firstm he calling his wife "man." Second, he's telling her not to sweat it and all his psychedelic-groovy talk didn't help much - (this was no easy thing and she was sweating it big time). 

 

The baby started coming out and she began freaking out and then screaming and then he tried to calm her more and then she turned on him and said that this was all his fault - and then took one hand off the door handle - and them swung and knocked the hippie dude to the floor, and then she began yelling at him for being on the floor and then said she needed him. 

 

Then the big sissy began crying because he was watching a  miracle unfold before his eyes... I don't know if he was smoking that hippie herbal stuff - like my brothers grow in the backyard...but, like the dude was totally out of it and me and my 9-year-old friend practically delivered the baby ourselves. 

YUCK...there was water and some blood and like this gross extension cord thing and it was wrapped around the babies neck. The baby was blue and the mom was scared and I had to get the dead-beat hippie-dad to do something. Finally, after I knocked some sense into him, he unwound that cord thingy and the baby turned pink and then he spanked the baby in the bottom like we see doctors do on TV and the baby started crying... and everyone was happy and started crying again.

"Sheeze-Louise," there was nothing silent about this thing and there was nothing calm about this baby's birth...either. Everyone was nervous and on edge. It was messy and it was loud!

 

As I sit here and look at my Nativity set,  I can only imagine what it might have been like a couple thousand years ago in a barn...with cows mooing... and angels making a raucous overhead and shepherds and sheep... and all the other pieces that gathered on that blessed occasion that are part of our family's nativity set.

Now listen, I'm not saying it wasn't a "holy and glorious night" but it probably was not like the romantic notion of a "hallmark" moment in the song  "Silent Night."

 

I only have 50 cents to my name for mowing Frank Nargie's lawn, but if I had to bet... I would bet it all! Yep, I would bet all 50 cents that it was anything other than a quiet peaceful night when two frightened parents...real people were having a real baby in the worse circumstances possible.   

I know there was this whole "God-thing" going on...but these were real people having a real baby.  I'm sure they were concern about germs and about that cord thingy.. don't tell my Catholic friends, but Mary was likely going through a lot of pain like every other mother... and Joseph was probably concerned like every other "Father-type" person.  After a long journey...weary from traveling while pregnant and exhausted, she might not has had the resolve NOT to scream at Joseph - most likely she was acutely in-touch with her pain and emotions as any real lady having a baby would be.  There was no family, no help, the nervous dad-to-be was probably freaked out.  The baby probably came with a lot of pain and Joseph probably spanked the new born Jesus (just like hey do in the Western movies on TV) and thankfully baby Jesus started crying.

"No crying he makes"  Who came up with that nonsense?  Of course he cried, and the parents wanted him to. Add to that - cows...mooing... and angels singing... and shepherds visiting... then along comes a drummer boy playing his drum and the "Wise guys" who are on the way... this certainly doesn't add up to quiet night at all - bet my 50 cents.

It was real! God came in human flesh...wholly and fully human in every way. This is what makes the story so Amazing! God become human... with human feelings and human desires...having to feel pain and temptation just like us. It is the humanity part of who He that gave him the capacity to wholly identifies with us and it is the humanity part of His God-appearing in human form that gives credence to His perfect obedience. As God we would expect nothing - but perfect obedience...DUH! Hello? But, as fully man...He had to struggle with pain and food and hunger and sleep and prejudice and temptation and mistreatment and false accusations...and not give in to hate and pride and payback and His own selfish desires. 

In His humanity, he didn't want to go to the cross! Sister Edith (you know the Nun with the "head-tones"), told us the part of the Bible where Jesus prayed and said something like 'Father, I don't want to do it... is there anyway that I don't have to go and suffer on the cross - I don't look forward to having to suffer that much pain...and endure that much humiliation...but Father I will trust you instead...and be obedient to your will!" Wow... that was some pretty heavy stuff.  Can't say that I get it all, but let's not take away His humanity (or Mary's of Joseph's) from the Story - That's what makes it so great!

Noisy night, holy night
craziness, all is bright
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and loud 

Please won't you sleep
Please won't you sleep

Noisy night, scarey night
Mary screams, Joseph freaks
Two real people, trying to figure it out
afraid until they see His face
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth "

Noisy night, holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ,a real baby is born 

Christ, the Savior is born. 

There! I fixed the song... this is more like it - bet my 50 cents!

Meanwhile the Wise Men are on the way, which we'll celebrate in a couple days on January 6th - in what we call the "Feast of the Epiphany."  In the mean time I might have to share with you the wrapping paper debacle that continued from this Christmas morning for many more years to come, which added to my PTSD.


Oh, and here are my neighbors (the Lennon Sisters) singing "Silent Night"  (I told them, that although I had delivered a baby, that it was okay for them to sing it this way) and so they did!

The origin of the Christmas carol we know as Silent Night was a poem that was written in 1816 by an Austrian priest called Joseph Mohr. On Christmas Eve in 1818 in the small alpine village called Oberndorf it is reputed that the organ at St. Nicholas Church had broken. Joseph Mohr gave the poem of Silent Night (Stille Nacht) to his friend Franz Xavier Gruber and the melody for Silent Night was composed with this in mind. The music to Silent Night was therefore intended for a guitar and the simple score was finished in time for Midnight Mass. Silent Night is the most famous Christmas carol of all time!