Hush…. It’s time!
Time to finish the buying and wrapping, time to set our troubles aside. Our cares will still be there next week, after all, and we don’t want to miss the peace that’s promised by the season.
One Christmas hymn keeps floating through my mind, helping me focus. A friend sent me this instrumental version on video (it’s her playing the autoharp) and it’s hauntingly beautiful. I’ve sung it so often, the words come to me wrapped in the tune.

Click the picture to hear Lucille Reilly playing her arrangement of “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” at Montview Presbyterian, Denver. Image clipped from Youtube video. Song begins at 20:02.
Here’s the first verse in case it’s not familiar:
Ponder nothing earthly-minded,
For with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.
As of old on earth he stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.
Cherubim, with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Alleluia, Lord Most High!
Thank you Sarah for sharing your friend Lucille’s rendition of that beautiful and fitting arrangement, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.”
It truly put my heart and mind in the true sense of honoring our Lord at Christmas. I can understand why you were singing these words throughout the day. It is a spiritual haunting arrangement with words that touch our very souls.
May your Christmas be filled with peace and true joy.