And because in the midst of struggle against seemingly obdurate imperial powers, we need hope, an instrumental performance of "Silent Night" that I find especially beautiful. If I'm not mistaken, the performer is the ChildoStorm to whose YouTube page the video links.
I like this performance because it's measured and reverent, but also because there's a longstanding (if not entirely documented) tradition that when Franz Xaver Gruber composed the melody for "Silent Night" for Austrian priest Joseph Mohr, he did so with the guitar in mind.
I hope you'll find this music as peace-inducing and lovely as I do, and that it will help knit the ravelled sleeves of care in this holiday season when many of us prepare for the celebration of the birth of Christ by shopping mercilessly till we drop--and when anyone living in Christian-dominated areas of the world who's not in sync with this Christopagan feast has to feel perplexed, vexed, and left out of the fun. And the madness.
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