The story goes that the man was walking down the street on Christmas Day, deep in his own world of hurt. His wife had died two years before; his son was critically wounded while fighting in a war that seemed might never end. And as he walked, he heard the church bells ringing and couldn’t help but feel despair and thought, “Christmas bells! Peace? Goodwill?”
He got home and wrote:
“I heard the bells on Christmas Day their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come, the belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song of peace on earth, good-will to men …”
It’s easy, today, to wonder about the same things. Peace on earth? Goodwill toward men? With this country feeling as divided as it ever has, where even church members – Christians – argue over politics and policies and say things like, “As a Christian how can you vote for …” whomever, or whatever.
And the divide between church-goers and non-church goers seems even greater. Court case after court case is fought over the “intrusion” of faith-based ideas into the public sector, one side arguing that you can’t limit the practice of ones’ faith to the privacy of the home and church while the other side argues you can’t impose your religious “beliefs” (which are often mocked) onto your neighborhood and certainly not your neighbor.
The man walking down the street who wrote those words was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was 1863, and this country was truly more divided than it ever had been. One entire section of the country had pulled away from the other, and in the new territories – out west, where new states were being formed – the battle raged over which side those new states might side with, which policies most of the people agreed with.
In the face of his personal – and national – tragedy, Longfellow wrote, "How inexpressibly sad are all holidays." A year after his wife’s death, he wrote, "I can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace." Longfellow's journal entry for December 25th, 1862 reads: "'A merry Christmas' say the children, but that is no more for me."
And so Longfellow, in this poem, went on to write:
“Till, ringing, singing on its way, the world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
You can imagine the cold, cruel irony Longfellow must have found in those words. In fact, he doesn’t hide his feelings in the next verse, which goes:
“Then from each black, accursed mouth the cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent the hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn the households born of peace on earth, good-will to men! ...”
Certainly, 2017 is not the most divided this country has ever been. In my own, increasingly extensive lifetime I can remember being a child coming of age in the 1960s, of seeing my own part of the country torn by arrests and beatings and fire hoses and police dogs, while in other parts of the country riots left stores and cars burned, people beaten by the very people who were their neighbors. On college campuses, students led protests and took over administration buildings to protest a government and a war, and on a college campus in Ohio the national guard fired shots into a protest, killing four students.
I have read of the serious division in this country in 1939-40, over involvement in European wars. And we know of the era of the 1920s-30s, Prohibition and the Great Depression. Maybe it’s the nature of a country as large as ours, and as diverse, to periodically be divided over deeply held beliefs.
Longfellow’s’ words continue:
“And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Today might not be the most divided our nation has ever been, but history brings no comfort when you’re living through a time such as this, when even good deeds are questioned, when honest intent is doubted, when one group seems to honestly believe the other has become a threat and there is no common ground. There seems to be very little ‘‘social’’ about “social media,” just as there was very little “civil” in what is referred to as the “Civil War.” It’s so easy to criticize when you don’t have to face the person you are criticizing; so easy to infer evil motives when you don’t take the time to try to understand the person whose actions you are doubting; so easy to hate when you’re talking about people you never met, never had a conversation with; so easy to “know” the “truth” in an information stream unlike any in the history of the world where not only do we have access to more truth than ever before, but we’re also being lied to more than ever before. And all that access to more information than ever has simply made is easier to refuse to allow ourselves to be challenged in our assumptions.
Still, even in the midst of his despair – and in ours – Longfellow’s’ ending rings true. It has to be true. Life makes no sense unless it’s true.
He writes:
“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on earth, good-will to men."
I heard the words of another song-poem recently. I don’t know who wrote it or even who sang it, but these words – or something close to them – stuck with me: “The world is not falling apart. God’s plan is coming together.”
That’s my hope. And every year, through the ups and downs of life, Christmas reminds me of that truth that I hold to and in my life I have found to be self-evident.
And so, I wish you “Peace on Earth, good-will toward men.”
Merry Christmas. And a Happy New Year.
(For full disclosure, the idea of formatting my thoughts between verses of “Christmas Bells” is not original with me. Congressman Gary Palmer did this in a Christmas speech to a veterans’ organization. However, the commentary between stanzas is mine.
