Child of spirit, child of light, warming hearts in coldest places, bringing joy to cheerless faces, born to love this Christmas night, child of spirit, child of light: with the frightened refugee, little one, among the nameless you have joined the hurt and homeless in the tent of poverty, with the frightened refugee: for the children of the world, you come cradled, you come crying where the hawks of war are ?ying, where earth’s miseries unfold for the children of the world. Come and teach us what is peace: to our lovelessness and violence to the voice of terror’s tyrants, to each home and every race, come and teach us what is peace! In our time and in our place, one more year unwrapping Christmas, be the hope that God is with us, that each one of us know peace in our time and in our place.
Christ is our peace, Christ is our health, he the true Word, his the true wealth— gifts to be shared by the simple and poor: peace in your land, peace at your door. Peace in your mouth, peace in the hands open to truth, to love’s demands: those who would go with Christ also must bleed— bright is the flower, burst is the seed. Who work for peace find the true wealth, who heal the hurt find their own health— peace will flow on through the hearts that believe: this may we know, thus may we live.
Christmas come close in a child’s crumpled face, to the ragged and raw in a harsh birthing place, in a surging of joy, in a bundle held tight, in a breath, in a cry through the dark of the night. Christmas come close to the place where we are, in our longing for peace, for a sign, for a star, for a certainty born in uncertainty’s space, for a mystery grasped that our blindness can trace. Christmas come close to the world that is bleak, giving hope a new home, making prophecy speak: so the angels will sing, and the wise will be heard, and the powers will take heed of this child and his word. Christmas come close into focus and frame, to humanity’s heart for the child to make claim: for the poor to be served, for the rich to kneel low, for Magnificat now in the Christmas we know.
Come and find the quiet center in the crowded life we lead, find the room for hope to enter, find the frame where we are freed: clear the chaos and the clutter, clear our eyes, that we can see all the things that really matter, be at peace, and simply be. Silence is a friend who claims us, cools the heat and slows the pace, God it is who speaks and names us, knows our being, touches base, making space within our thinking, lifting shades to show the sun, raising courage when we’re shrinking, finding scope for faith begun. In the Spirit let us travel, open to each other’s pain, let our loves and fears unravel, celebrate the space we gain: there’s a place for deepest dreaming, there’s a time for heart to care, in the Spirit’s lively scheming there is always room to spare!
Come the day, come the sun, come the moment of shining, let me see all the world in this light, in the goodness of God, in the earth and its music with the wings that give wonder its flight. Come the day, come my work, that however I find it, I am blessed by what spirit achieves; let me center my thought, let me serve where it’s needful, from the spring to the fall of the leaves. Come the fears and the tears come the grief and regretting when the web of my weaving is torn; come the joys and the hopes when a new life is growing like the dream of a child to be born. Come the night, come the stars, come the time for goodbye-ing in the circle of faith and of friend, giving thanks, knowing love in the deepest of measure, let me travel in peace to my end. (Optional repeat of first verse)