"Angels We Have Heard On High" on a Silent Night

24 December 2010, 7:30 P.M.

    It is turning out to be one very interesting Christmas Eve for me.  Earlier this morning, I had my day all planned out:

1. Bake two more batches of Shepherd's Pie;
2. Drop off gifts which needed last-minute delivery;
3. Buy pink flowers for my Lolo's grave (because he always gets yellow ones from my mom and my lola);
4. Drive off to our hometown; and
5. Attend Christmas Eve service (and watch out for my four-year old goddaughter Ashley's opening spiel) then cap off the night with noche buena.

    I made it as far as "drive off to our hometown."  As I'm writing this, I'm sitting on my bed in the middle of our dark bedroom illuminated only by my laptop's backlight and the colored lights my grandfather had installed outside our window years ago.  Three of our dogs are in the living room and the foyer, padlocked inside the house with me.  Somewhere I could make out the sound of singing children from the little chapel situated near our house.  I'll miss out on seeing Ashley deliver her spiel as well as the other kids sing Christmas songs I know by heart.  I'm sure it's quite cold outside since I'm in the room but I'm snug in my sweater and blanket.  My X-Mini is softly playing Bocelli singing "Angels We Have Heard on High" in Italian (at least I think it's italian).  I don't speak or know the language but at the bare minimum, I wish I could hum along with the tune.  But, no, on Christmas Eve I have to be nursing a very sore throat and have completely lost my voice.  Swallowing is very painful and involves a lot of effort.  Early this afternoon I was starting to sound a lot like my parents' long-lost son and about a few hours ago, the only sound I could generate was the slight hiss generated by air passing through my throat as I attempted to utter monosyllabic words.  Since I intend to have some semblance of a voice tomorrow, I chose to stop talking altogether and to generate sounds only by drumming my appendages .  So on Christmas Eve of 2010, it's just me having a very silent night..all alone with just Bocelli and the dogs.  Maybe "alone" just up until around 9 p.m. when everyone else comes home from church.

    Save for the distant sounds of singing and the soft music in the room, it is indeed turning out to be one very quiet Christmas Eve.  It's not a exactly a lonely Christmas, just a very different one.  Okay, I admit, I just might be in denial.  If only I weren't feeling so whoozy and heavy-headed, I'd have half the mind to walk out the house, wade in ankle-deep mud and sit by my grandfather's grave just so tonight would feel a little bit more like the ordinary Christmas Eves we've had for the past twenty-six years.

    Bocelli still continues to sing in Italian, his rich voice blending beautifully with the grandness of the orchestra and the accompanying choir.  In the stillness of this night, it is now much easier to imagine how similarly quiet the shepherds of Bethlehem had begun their evening that very first Christmas 2,010 years ago.  In fact, unlike me waiting for family to come home from church and to partake of noche buena later in the night, the shepherds had nothing festive to look forward to.  It was just another night on the job, keeping watch over their flocks and perhaps exchanging stories just so they could stay awake.  Or so they thought.  They had absolutely no idea they were going to witness the birth of the One who would bring salvation to the world.  Neither were they aware that they were going to be visited by angels in the middle of the darkness, bearing tidings of the best news that they were to ever hear in more than ten lifetimes.  They did not expect to see and hear for themselves "a multitude of the heavenly host praising God" in the very same words Bocelli was singing so divinely at the moment.  I bet they sounded way better than all the Bocellis, Pavarottis, Carusos, Grobans and Richard Poons in the world combined.  This image is so grandiose and so astounding in my mind that I find it very hard to believe that none of the shepherds suffered a heart attack either from shock upon seeing the heavens open up to reveal the angelic celestial chorus or simply from sheer happiness. 

    In the middle of the darkness, the silence, the solitude, the struggling and the loneliness came a message of hope on that night 2,010 years ago.  It was a message that was to change the world, the very course of history and the lives of all mankind.  That message came in the grandest cosmic manner and filled the shepherds with euphoria so absolute they proceeded without haste to the birthplace of Jesus Christ and went back to their homes with hearts and lips praising God endlessly.  So on this night of silence and of solitude, in the middle of the chill and the rain, I look forward to the grandness of God's plan for me and my family.  This Christmas is new, different, lonelier and perhaps a bit more sentimental but the message of hope is no longer just a general generic reminder.  True, I may only have Bocelli in digital music and not angels on high, singing sweetly over the plains but the message and the reason for singing remains truer and closer than ever.  This Christmas, the hope which the birth of Jesus Christ has given mankind now resonates with a more familiar, more relevant connection in my heart.

    In my head, I hum with a heart full of thankfulness and joy, summoning all the grandness my non-existent voice could muster: "Gloria, in excelsis Deo, gloria in excelsis Deo."