It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

The presents, the stockings and rising early before the sun rose up trying to see Santa are all beloved memories from my youth. I LOVED Christmas and bought into the whole North Pole fantasy without a second thought. To a child, the magic and promise  of "good things happening to the world" was not so hard to buy into. Fresher from heaven and angels, as a child, I did not think it was unusual for one man to load up his sleigh and visit every single house on Christmas Eve.  Of course he knew my name and every other child's name on earth. I did not have trouble believing in a babe that was born in a manger either.  Why wouldn't the donkeys, sheep and cattle surround that place and worship their Heavenly King?The thought of a salutory star rising in the Eastern sky,   guiding wisemen and sheperds made perfect sense.
As the years have passed , my childlike faith has been replaced not so much with doubt, but with its bed-fellow fear.  The trials of the mortal journey weigh down my soul. If Santa is not real, of course this Christ-person may not exist either. I have never laid eyes on either of them. Just as it is impossible for a single being to visit every child in one night, what are the possibilities of a single being delivering me from my own cess pool of troubles? It just seems highly unlikely to my analytical mind.
Then there was today...
I was studying physics with my daughter. Unfortunately,  my previous exposure to this subject was limited to a ninth grade class I took from an aging teacher who was a year away from retirement. His monotone dronings coupled with the occasional yawn did little to pique my interest in the subject. Here, years later after many years of earthly trials that in there own right have become monotonous, I find myself yawning at the chalkboard of life.  Dani asked me to explain Newton's laws to her. I read about invisible, but strong forces at work in my environment. Even books seemingly motionless have forces of action and reaction that surround them. The more I read of inertia and gravity and this weird thing "For every action there is an equal and OPPOSITE reaction"I realize there is NO randomness in the physical universe and it alls seems so highly organized. I am further astounded when I study atoms with little Jess. The nucleus of an atom is genius with the number of protons and neutrons resting in harmonious allegiance to each other. They are always numbered in the same amount. Only with the possibility of the electrons that orbit the nucleus in differing levels and numerical values does the possibility of change demonstrate.  The magic of molecular combination is eerie,  yet SO real. These are forces I cannot see with my naked eye and yet...they are real and they affect every minute of my everyday living even as I yawn, in my life, at the chalkboard.
Suddenly, I understand that if there are possibilties of actions and reactions on a molecular level, of course there could be larger forces at play. 
I decide that in my subconscious mind I now know why I have started favoring Christmas Eve over Christmas Day. It was on Christmas Eve that  "It came upon a midnight clear, that glorious song of old.. " Yes, that glorious song of old whispers of hope for a REAL christ child.  In a world where unfairness rules, sickness and greed abound what would Newton's third Law dictate? It would dictate an opposite reaction. A reaction of a humble babe born in a lowly manger. It would dictate reactions of a soul overcoming sin and death. It would yearn for  mercy, love and tolerance to oppose its cruel environment. In other words, Newton's third Law begs that what this world REALLY needed and  was supplied with was...
a  Savior.

 

"YET with the woes of sin and stride
The world has 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.
And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!
For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet bards foretold
When with the ever- circling years
Comes round the age of gold
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling
And(here comes Newton's Law)
The whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing"

Written by Edward Sears- 1849