So goes the Christmas song “Do you hear what I hear?” When we listen to this carol, every December we usually think its about hearing, seeing and knowing what happened the night Jesus was born. However the main intent of the couple who wrote the song was different.

Noel Regney & his wife Gloria Shayne collaborated on this song in October 1962 at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Regney was walking down a street in New York City thinking about the Christmas  song he had been asked to compose, with the Soviet Union & United States on the brink of nuclear war every one in the street seemed subdued and nervous. But then he spotted two ladies walking with their babies in strollers. The little angels were looking at each other and smiling, Regney recalled, all of a sudden my moods became extraordinary

The little babies reminded Regney of little lambs and they became the inspiration of the new song. So using the Christmas images of a little lamb,  shepherd boy and a mighty king, he and his wife placed their plea for peace which came right in the middle of the Cuba Missile Crisis in the form of manger scene.

Shayne & Regney were right, the theme in their song seeing and hearing and knowing something new can be a perfect way for us to find Peace and goodness around us as we prepare to commemorate the birth of lord Jesus.

Let us imagine three different people asking us today, Do you see what I see? Through the eyes of God the Father,  the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit. What did God see as he looked on his people lost in sin? What did Mary see as she looked at her new born Baby  in her arms? What does the Holy Spirit look in us today both in our hearts and the world around us?

Let us ask God to give us new light to the eyes of our hearts so that we can be filled with Joy and Peace to blow away the dark clouds hovering over us of Religious Intolerance, Moral Bankruptcy, Social Adultery and Economic Plunder the same way that Christmas song “DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?” had defused the nuclear war that was eminent then.

 

Agnelo Da Cruz

Sector III, Zone 2