Happy Holidays. It’s been an interesting year and this last quarter has been particularly tumultuous. This holiday season has held so much pain and loss that many are still begging for an end to as we try to acknowledge a time for joyous celebrations.
Acknowledging my fortune to have Christmas music as the loudest thing ringing around me, I’m thinking about the song “O Holy Night.” I’ve heard this song so many times in my life, at least the first verse of it. I was listening to a newer rendition recently when the third verse caught my attention.
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His Gospel is Peace
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother
And in His name, all oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we
Let all within us Praise His Holy name
Christ is the Lord; O praise His name forever!
His power and glory evermore proclaim
His power and glory evermore proclaim
I know it’s not the first or last song with a verse we’ve opted to ignore, but the words struck a chord for me when I heard them. What’s that about slavery and oppression? Maybe the third verse fell away early in this country as Americans celebrated another 20 or so Christmases alongside enslaved people who could certainly not be seen as kin. Then again, the song wasn’t translated from French to English until the mid 1850s, so I guess it was a decade of American Christmases. What’s 10 years of denial of someone’s humanity after more than 200? And then however many more ensuring they don’t feel at all like kin.
We’ve certainly learned by now that denial of a group’s humanity is one of the first major steps toward oppression, enslavement, genocide, or any number of displays of violence and hatred that humans have created for anyone deemed “other.” Yet, here we are, fighting for ignored words once again. Time, instead of leading to different decisions, has only made it clear how intentional such omissions are. I hope the holidays bring some peace and some reprieve in much less time.
Header Photo: https://vocal.media/beat/is-it-a-christmas-song-christmas-hymn-or-christmas-carol
Maya Just Writes 