Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I published this Christmas-related column in the Deseret News<\/em> on 20 December 2012:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow\u2019s first wife, Mary, died after a miscarriage. His second wife, Fanny, died in a freak household fire. Trying to save her, he himself was burned so badly that he couldn\u2019t attend her funeral and, for the remaining decades of his life, couldn\u2019t shave. His iconic image, still today, features a long white patriarchal beard.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cHow inexpressibly sad are all holidays,\u201d he wrote on the first Christmas after Fanny\u2019s death. One year after her passing, he commented, \u201cI can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace.\u201d His journal entry for Dec. 25, 1862, reads: \u201c\u2009\u2019A merry Christmas\u2019 say the children, but that is no more for me.\u201d Late in 1863, his eldest son, Charles, was severely wounded fighting for the Union in the American Civil War. He made no journal entry at all for Christmas that year.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI heard the bells on Christmas Day,\u201d he wrote on Dec. 25, 1864. But the war still raged, and he was still in pain. \u201cAnd in despair I bowed my head: \u2018There is no peace on earth,\u2019 I said. \u2018For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men.\u201d But then his mood shifted. \u201cThen pealed the bells more loud and deep: \u2018God is not dead, nor doth he sleep; the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nMere words are wholly inadequate in the face of great human suffering, brought home to us in an especially horrifying way by last week\u2019s report from Newtown, Conn. However, the central idea of Christianity, which we celebrate at this very season, is that God hasn\u2019t confined himself to mere words.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThe Word was made flesh,\u201d reports John, \u201cand dwelt among us.\u201d And, therefore, \u201cthe Light shineth in darkness\u201d (John 1:14, 5). The God of Christianity is no unmoved mover, no absentee landlord, distant and unfeeling \u2014 let alone a hanging judge, a kind of cosmic Inspector Javert. Describing the Savior\u2019s response to the death of his friend Lazarus, John 11:35 is the shortest verse in scripture but among the most significant: \u201cJesus wept.\u201d \u201cThen said the Jews,\u201d in the next verse, \u201cBehold how he loved him!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nChristmas is a child\u2019s holiday, a day of wonders for kids. But it\u2019s infinitely more.<\/span><\/p>\nAlmost a century before the Savior\u2019s birth in Palestine, the New World prophet Alma explained that Jehovah would come to earth, among other reasons, \u201cthat he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities\u201d (Alma 7:12).<\/span><\/p>\nThe Prophet Joseph Smith learned by revelation in 1832 that Christ \u201cascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth\u201d (D&C 88:6).<\/span><\/p>\nThere is no sorrow, no despair, no pain, no hopelessness that the Lord doesn\u2019t know from direct experience. He didn\u2019t just read about these things in a book.<\/span><\/p>\nIn March 1839, Joseph Smith languished miserably in the jail at Liberty, Mo., while his people, because of their trust in his teaching, were being driven from their homes during a brutal Midwestern winter. Seeking divine comfort, he was given an appalling list of sufferings and injustices and then gently reminded that \u201cThe Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?\u201d (D&C 122:8).<\/span><\/p>\nThe comfort seldom comes instantly. \u201cThine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment,\u201d said a revelation to Joseph (D&C 121:7). However, they lasted more than five years, ending only with his death at the hands of a mob.<\/span><\/p>\nBut Julian of Norwich, the early English mystic (d. 1416), was nonetheless right when, under inspiration (as she claimed), she summed up her Christian hope in the simple words, \u201cAll shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nAnd this is true only because the Savior (Immanuel, \u201cGod with us\u201d) came into the world. The light of Christmas shines even brighter after the darkness of Newtown. Because he lives, its victims shall live also. (See John 14:19.)<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cAnd God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away\u201d (Revelation 21:4).<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
A postscript:<\/p>\n
When I was a boy, our ward would sometimes sing only the first three verses of \u201cI heard the bells\u201d \u2014 verses four and five, I seem to recall, were in smaller print below the music \u2014 and, thus, we would close with this:<\/p>\n
And in despair I bowed my head:<\/div>\n
\u201cThere is no peace on earth,\u201d I said,<\/div>\n
\u201cFor hate is strong and mocks the song<\/div>\n
Of peace on earth, good will to men.\u201d<\/div>\n
People would then serenely close their hymnals and we would move on \u2014 and I would want to scream \u201cAren\u2019t you paying any attention to the words? \u00a0You can\u2019t close with that verse!\u201d \u00a0Now, all five verses are included with the music. \u00a0Hallelujah!<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 I published this Christmas-related column in the Deseret News on 20 December 2012: \u00a0 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow\u2019s first wife, Mary, died after a miscarriage. His second wife, Fanny, died in a freak household fire. Trying to save her, he himself was burned so badly that he couldn\u2019t attend her funeral and, for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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