Can we talk?

Do You Hear What I Hear?

         The Scrooge in my office was complaining about this song today. Whatever version he had heard recently was unintelligible. He texts his grown children constantly, and they told him it's not Biblical. I want to address this.

         No, it's not Biblical. It takes poetic license. It's purely imaginary. The night wind doesn't really talk, and yet some of us think that once in a while it might. Lambs don't talk either. You have to suspend your disbelief to follow the poetic thought of the song. Each time the message is proclaimed, it changes slightly, like playing "Gossip" or "Telephone". In fact religion, Christian or otherwise, gets interpreted by the individual or group that is proclaiming it. The song should never be taken literally. It wouldn't have been tolerated in colonial America, where only Biblical accounts could be sung. That means there weren't many Christmas songs or hymns at that time.

         It helps to know that the song was written during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The married couple who wrote it, Regly and Shayne (I know nothing about them), were frightened by the news. People believed there was a real threat of nuclear war. Mr. Regly wrote the lyrics. He wrote of the king proclaiming, "Pray for peace, people everywhere" right after seeing babies being pushed in strollers on 5th Avenue in New York City. He was afraid for all those little children.

         The song was their desperate cry for peace on earth, for hope in a world that seemed doomed. They wanted their message to go from the most basic elements of nature to the ultimate authority in gathering people together for a universal cry for love and tolerance. More than fifty years later, the song is still being covered by a variety of artists and still stirs the heart to hope and pray for peace on earth.