"Silent Night" Has Never Been the Same Since...

There is no song that shares the warm and fuzzy Christmas

feelings around the planet like “Silent Night”.

 

It’s a song that’s been translated into every language. It’s easily

sung, and somehow it just wouldn’t be Christmas if I weren’t

in a church where we lit candles and sang that song.

 

Everyone knows the feeling from singing and hearing that

song. But my reaction is always so intense I can hardly sing

the words as I am reminded of the candle lit face of

a little girl, and my eyes get teary and my voice gets choked.

 

I spent more than 35 years working in television news. Whenever people

ask about “What the story you covered you remember the most”

I always remember the event involving that song.

 

But I always talk about meeting famous people or some other

thing because I can’t verbally tell the story. The words are there,

but the tears get in the way and the voice breaks before I can

get it all out.

 

It started at the height of the Vietnam War. Many

American military personnel were prisoners of war or

missing in action, and there was a growing movement to

call attention to their plights.

 

I was working and living in Phoenix, and there were two

Air Force bases nearby.  It seemed to me a good Christmas

story would be to interview a woman with children

whose husband was listed as a prisoner or missing in action.

 

Sadly, the biggest roadblock was not in finding a willing

family, but in working out a way to maintain secrecy about

their whereabouts. Many in the anti-war movement

seemed to delight in taunting the families about the plights

of their loved ones, referring to them as criminals.

 

(Later in life I would be very active in peace movements and

activities. I would always be ashamed that people who claimed

to be a part of that movement during the Vietnam conflict

missed the point of peacemaking entirely. The wives and

children of those men were as much victims as anyone else.

And anyone who taunts someone whose loved one

is in such jeopardy doesn’t understand the concepts

of peace or love.)

 

Like many such cases at the time, it was what wasn’t known

that mattered. It was known the plane was shot down, but it

wasn’t known if the pilot survived.

 

Was he dead?

Was he hiding in the jungle?

Was he in a prison camp?

 

The only thing that was certain is that he wouldn’t be

home with the family that Christmas.

 

As I arrived at the house and was setting up my camera

equipment I asked the mother to step outside a moment.

“Is there anything I shouldn’t say to the children?” I asked.

She assured me they were all very aware of the situation

and anything I wanted to ask was fine.

 

The first part of the story was routine. Getting pictures of

the tree and presents—including a few gifts for dad. There

was also a nativity scene, and other strong visual

evidence of the family’s Christian faith.

 

I know I interviewed the mother next, but I have no memory what

she said for then I lined up the children on the couch—two boys

and two girls. I wanted them to tell me on camera what they

wanted for Christmas. The idea was they were to say they

wanted something tangible like a new bicycle or a puppy or ‘

some other thing I could easily arrange for a local business or

organization to donate.

 

But it didn’t go that way. Not even close to it.

 

“I want my dad to come home,” the oldest boy said. Then

the next oldest boy said the same thing, and then a daughter,

and the littlest girl of all—born five days after her father’s

plane was shot down--paused and seemed briefly stumped

for an answer.

 

The big brother whispered to his brother who whispered

to his sister who whispered to his little sister, and then she

came forth with the answer I had just heard three times before.

If only I could get someone to donate daddy getting home.

 

As I was preparing to leave, and having a hard time

keeping my emotions in check, I noticed a photo of the

missing pilot I hadn’t seen before, so I set up my camera to

get  a nice shot of it. The mother immediately picked it

up and said  she had to clean it off first. It was covered, she

said, with  fingerprints and lip prints of the children who kissed

the picture every night.

 

Somehow I thanked the mother, got in the car and left. My

emotional state was like an ice cube on a Phoenix sidewalk

in July. Rapid meltdown was hitting me hard.

 

A year later the POW-MIA families were having a ceremony

at the State Capitol just before Christmas. The assignment

editor wanted me to cover it because of the public reaction

we had received from my story the previous year.

 

But I didn’t want to repeat the emotional stress, so I called the

people in charge of the event, and asked about the family I

had interviewed. They wouldn’t be participating, I was told,

and so I agreed to cover the story, feeling confident my

emotions would not again be jerked inside out.

 

It was a moving ceremony in the old state capitol building

with a dome and a circular balcony looking down on the

state seal. At the end of the service the children were going

to have lighted candles and sing “Silent Night”.

 

This, I knew, would be the end of the broadcast

story. There wouldn’t be a dry eye in Phoenix when they saw

those little kids faces and heard the music and words and at

the end we’d just fade to black and go to a commercial.

 

From a visual perspective it was going better than I dreamed.

There was just enough light coming from the candles to give

each small face a bit of yellow glow. It was an outstanding

cinematography opportunity as I panned from left to

right, changing the focus, and filling the frame with a different

face very few seconds.

 

And then it happened.

 

Wham! It hit me in the eye like a speeding fastball. It was

the face of that little girl who the year before had been

sitting on the couch! My eye was in the viewfinder and

all that I could see was the beautiful face, lit by candles, and

her mouthing the words of“Sleep in heavenly peace.”

 

Part of my reaction was shock, and there was even some

Brief anger. Someone lied and told me they wouldn’t be here!

I knew I would be an emotional wreck all through the

holidays because I had seen that family again.

 

After the ceremony I saw the mother and sister and

brothers and walked over to say hello. I was greeted warmly

and told again how much they appreciated the story the

previous year.

 

Somehow I started getting a grasp of my holiday emotions.

 

The next year I called them on the phone to tell them how

much their show of faith meant to me and how Christmas

was more special now because of them.

 

A few years later the POWs and MIAs started being accounted

for and were coming home. I covered a few of them as

families had father join them for breakfast and dad went to

his son’s Little League game.

 

Here’s where you think you’re going to get the warm

and fuzzy message about the dad being found and all being

right with the world.

 

It didn’t happen that way. A government bureaucrat

decided there was enough evidence to declare the pilot legally

dead. There was the traditional ceremony with the playing of

taps, the firing squad, the missing man formation of jets flying overhead, and

the presentation of the tri-fold flag to the widow and

children with the words, “On behalf of the President of the

United States and a grateful nation…”

 

Now, dear reader, you’re probably angry with me because

you’re not getting the warm and fuzzy feeling you thought

you would be getting from a story about “Silent Night”.

 

But if you really feel that way, then you’ve missed the point

of the day.

 

For Christmas isn’t just about presents and feeling  good.

It’s the day we mark the birth of the Savior. The one

who died for us. Christmas is only the beginning of the

story.

 

And if we don’t understand that, if we believe the words “was

born, crucified, and rose again” then we’ve missed the entire

point of Christmas. If we don’t believe those basics of the faith,

then we’ve lost the right to get warm and fuzzy feelings when

we hear “Silent Night”, or get goose bumps when we hear

the “Hallelujah Chorus” or feel good when we sing “Joy to

the World”.

 

I learned the lesson from a little girl whose face I will see

forever whenever I hear a melody beloved all over the world.

She paid a very high price so I could finally get the

message I often heard sung by Harry Belefonte: “Long

time ago, in Bethlehem, so the Holy Bible say, Mary boy child Jesus

Christ was born on Christmas Day, and we shall live

forevermore because of Christmas Day.”

 

If she would ever learn about the impact she and the song had

on me, I hope she would think the price was worthy.

A Memorable "Holy Night" in Greentown

 

It was my 12th Christmas, and it took place in the center of my

universe: Greentown, Indiana—a town of about a thousand

people. Though there have more than a half-century of

them since, I still remember the key events of that particular

season that taught me the most about the Christmas message.

 

Part One

It started one day as my dad and I were on our front porch

and putting the new Christmas Tree on a stand. As usual,

we needed to cut off a few small branch pieces at the bottom

to make the tree fit into the holder.

 

While we were doing this Mrs. Rogers was walking by and

asked if she could have some of the small pieces we had cut off.

Her plan was to put one of them into a flowerpot and make a

little Christmas tree for her house.

 

It’s important to note that Mrs. Rogers was short, dumpy, had

very wrinkled skin, hair best described as mottled, and every

third tooth was missing.  I remember she was always

smiling and happy, though.

 

She did ironing for our family and others in the town. I

Remember asking my mother one day why we hired Mrs.

Rogers to do the ironing. We even had a new-fangled gadget

called an “automatic iron”, similar to what one finds in

professional cleaning establishments. My mother said

Mrs. Rogers needed the money very badly, and this was

a way for her to get it.

 

Part Two

One reason our Christmas trees always looked so good is

Because my father was a member of the American Legion,

and they were the big tree sellers in the town. It was an annual

fund-raising event for them and one perk is that Legionnaires

always got the best trees first.

 

One place where the trees were sold was a gas station near to

my house.

 

One day I was on my front porch when I saw a young

man from my school acting strangely near the trees that were

for sale. Suddenly his father put a tree in the back of his car and

the two of them drove off. I then realized the man hadn’t paid

for the tree and his son was acting as a lookout.

 

I immediately ran into my house and told my mother we must

call the town marshal for someone had just stolen a Christmas

tree! My mother, though, had a different idea. Let’s wait

until your dad gets home and talk to him about it.

 

Great! Dad would really be mad and I’d be a hero for uncovering

The “crime of the century”.

 

Well, dad was upset all right, but not for the reasons I thought.

He was very unhappy because the man hadn’t come to dad and

say he wanted a tree and didn’t have the money. He was also

very unhappy that the man had used his son to help with the

theft.

 

For the first time ever I saw a compassion in my father I

didn’t know existed until that Christmas season.

 

 

Part Three

The next part of this story involves the first time I remember

hearing the carol “O Holy Night”. It was a very special time and

I remember it as though it was just last Christmas.

 

We had a brand new school gymnasium. As anyone in Indiana

knows, high school basketball was a key ingredient to a

community’s culture. The town only had a thousand

residents, but the basketball gym held twice that many.

 

We didn’t really have a football team then, so the band did

most of its marching in the gym during basketball half-times.

(Being a small school helped. Not a lot of space was

required.)

 

But on this particular evening the choir did the half-time

presentation. And at one point they were all in the shape of a

Christmas tree, holding small red and green lights, and the

gymnasium went completely dark—except for the “tree”

lights. And then I heard the choir and a soloist (I still

remember her name) sing “O Holy Night”.

 

I remember asking several people what that song was, and

wondering why I had never heard it before. But the tune

and many of the words were imbedded in my brain from that

moment. And all of the memories aren’t just Christmas ones.

Years later as I would march andsing “We Shall

Overcome” and other similar songs, I always remembered the words from that

carol: “Truly He taught us to love one another.”

 

Part Four

The fourth and final part of the memory came the next night,

Christmas Eve. My father had a store downtown and they were

always open on Saturday nights. I had been at the store on some

errand and was getting ready to go home when my dad said I

should go to one of the places selling trees, find the best one,

and take it to Mrs. Rogers’ house.

 

I’m sure I had a big grin because I remember the smile on my

dad’s face, which was his reaction to my reaction. Again, I

began to see a different side to my father than I knew existed.

 

I went to the tree lot and picked a tree very carefully, and then

began walking the few blocks to where Mr. and Mrs. Rogers

lived. It was a warm evening and my jacket was open.

 

Each year a great aunt would always give me an envelope at

Christmas and inside would either be a two-dollar bill or two

one-dollar bills. This year it was two new and crisp dollar bills.

 

Before getting to the Rogers’s home I took those two dollars

out of my wallet and put them in the tree where they would

easily be seen, but not right away.

 

I knocked and Mr. Rogers opened the door. I suddenly couldn’t

speak and just held up the tree. “Is that for us?” he asked. I just

nodded and smiled for speaking wasn’t possible for meat that

moment. And then he smiled.

 

More than a half-century has passed and to this day I can vividly

remember that man’s joyous expression representing the pleasure

of receiving a real Christmas tree. The fact that it was a leftover

tree didn’t matter. All that mattered to that man was that

someone cared enough to share it.

 

I never told my father about giving away the two dollars

(at a time when Coca-Cola and candy bars sold for a nickel

each). Sometimes I wonder what smile was on Mr. Rogers’

face when he found the money.

 

And here’s what we call the “kicker” to the story.

 

As I left that house to go home they began playing Christmas

music on the public address system of the nearby Methodist

Church. The music was always chimes, and it was on records.

 

On that very warm Christmas Eve in 1955 I again heard the tune

that was playing in my head from a few nights before.

 

Whenever I still hear that lovely melody I still remember about a

young boy who learned his father had compassion and how he

found a strange joy in giving much of what he had to someone

who didn’t have anything.