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2016 Worship Guide
December 7, 2016
A Lincoln Daily News Publication
Page 11
M
usic is, for me, one of the best parts of
this season. Each year certain Christmas
songs capture my heart and nest in my mind.
Sometimes they are of the secular variety such
as Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas
is You.” Sometimes they are a bit, shall we
say, goofy, like Ray Steven’s “Santa Claus is
Watchin’ You.”
Most of the time, though, they are the beautiful
heart stirring and thought provoking carols
we sing in worship this time of year. Words
like Longfellow’s
“… in despair I bowed my
head. ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said”
or
Edmund Sears’
“… ye beneath life’s crushing
load, whose forms are bending low”
have a
way of resonating with our own feelings about
our lives, our families, our world.
Of course, thanks be to God, not every season
is full of sorrowing and sighing. Some really
do sound more like “Joy to the World” and
“Good Christian Men, Rejoice!”
But what about this year? What song “fits”
this Christmas?
Warning:
I’m about to shift gears rather
dramatically, so this is me pressing on the
clutch.
What a truly awful election season we’ve just
witnessed! We have seen unrelenting ugliness
expressed by persons on both sides of the
political spectrum. Careless adjectives have
been hurled at the opposing candidates and
their supporters. News outlets, all claiming
to be unbiased, have been throwing fuel on
the fire from the beginning with inflammatory
accusations that have only deepened our
divisions. Social media has become a virtual
cesspool of hate speech. Words have been
fashioned into weapons, and even though the
election is over (we hope) the war rages on
and the casualty count is still climbing.
Is there any way to de-escalate? What can we
do to diffuse some of this national unrest that
might at least take us back to DEFCON 4?
I have a suggestion: we need to stop talking.
To clarify, I am not criticizing meaningful
conversation or helpful exchanges. But it
became apparent to me during this campaign
that we all talk too much. Whether it was
a 140 character tweet or a Facebook post
or a call to a radio program, it seems like
everybody had something to say and nobody
wanted to listen. As I recall from my
freshman speech class in college, that’s not
communication. That’s just noise.
Continue †
A wordLESS Christmas
Pastor Greg Wooten
-
Lincoln Church of the Nazarene