It came upon a Midnight Clear

Our family doesn't have any many Christmas traditions which is good and bad.  Bad because we don't have a specific set of activities and expectations to achieve, good because we do different things each year to make the season special.  This Sunday I pulled out my trusty book of hymn stories and read about the history of It came upon a Midnight Clear (and you can too here.)

For some reason it really spoke to my heart since it seems as if my life is noisy, chaotic and a wee bit wearisome these days.  This verse, which wasn't in either of my hymnals, was especially sweet:

Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world hath suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man hears not the love song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife and hear the angels sing.

This Christmas I'm hoping to find a way to be still and listen.