Start the New Year with a Box of Luden's Cough Drops

       Whenever I see Luden’s Cough Drops in the store I have this great desire to purchase a box, even if I don’t have a cough.  It takes me back to the 4^th grade when the most popular kid in the class was the one with the box of Luden’s. 

We were not allowed to bring candy to class, but this was medicine—right?   Watch a kid start coughing and bring out a box of Luden’s.  Remember what happened?  Every other kid sitting close to him also starting coughing and the next thing you knew, the newly anointed most popular kid was passing out Luden’s Cough Drops to all of his friends. 

There is a reason that Luden’s Cough Drops taste a lot like candy.  In its heyday, in addition to the much desired cough drops, the company produced more than 500 varieties of candy.  Sure, they do help a little if you have a cough, but their greatest benefit is being able to share something good with your friends.

I think I will buy a box of Luden’s for the New Year.  It’s always good to have something to share.  There are some more important boxes that need sharing in the New Year, beginning with the box of kindness. 

I can’t think of anything we need more in today’s world than kindness. There is something that is more important than being right and that is being kind.  Kindness is contagious.  Be kind to someone, and they will be kind to you. Kindness can not only make a difference in our world, it can transform it. 

Along with kindness, we need to have a box of compassion.  Compassion is powerful because it enables us to defeat indifference, intolerance, and injustice.   Compassion is impossible unless we place ourselves in the situation that evokes our concern.  When we do, we are able to treat everyone as equals, realizing that every human being is a person of worth, created in the image of God.  Acts of compassion can transform people, both the one who gives and the one who receives.  Compassion is the bond that unites all of humanity.   

The New Year is a great time for us to focus on the needs of others and make a positive difference.  When we do, we realize that our problems are not as big as we imagine them to be.  We also find a tremendous amount of fulfillment and well being, knowing that we can give hope to many who are suffering.  It felt good to be the most popular kid in the class, passing out those Luden’s Cough Drops.  It feels good as an adult to know that you are passing out the gifts of kindness, compassion, love, and mercy to those who have great needs.

There is one more thing I need to go.  I believe I will buy some boxes of civility and cooperation and send them to our friends in government.  We place our hand over our heart and pledge that we are “one nation, under God.”  Is this still true?  The poisonous rancor of division and hatred has replaced reason and cooperation.  The art of political compromise has been lost in a sea of vitriol and acrimony.  I pray that we will see the day when our leaders will show respect and have a sense of dignity for those with differing views.  Until then it is impossible to have a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.” 

The great German pastor and Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that we should “Live every day as if it were our last, yet live in faith and responsibility as though there were a great future.”  I would add to have a box of Luden’s Cough Drops so that you will have something good to share!   Happy New Year!

I Thought I Knew the Story of Silent Night: I Didn't

       Disaster struck at the Baptist Church back in the ‘80s.  The majestic pipe organ stopped playing just days before the big Christmas Eve service.  Our venerable organist, Miss Mabel (bless her heart), was in a tizzy. 

        Back in the day when I was working at the Baptist Church in LA (Lower Alabama), the organ quit and the deacons employed Leroy’s Machine Shop to rig up a replacement motor.  That story did not have a happy ending so I advised our deacons to contact the organ company.  But there was no way we would have an organ for the Christmas Eve service.

        Miss bless-her-heart Mabel was inconsolable.  She had planned a grand Prelude, a powerful rendition of Panis Angelicus that she had been rehearsing for months.  I told her that while we were saddened we would not be able to hear her masterpiece, we could still make this a memorable service.  I could tell the story of Silent Night—how the Priest discovered the organ was broken on Christmas Eve morning and he hurriedly wrote some words and then had the organist to compose a tune that they played on a guitar.  Since our organ was broken we could close our service by singing Silent Night, accompanied by a guitar.   

        That was exactly what we did.  People thought it was the best Christmas Eve service ever, much to Miss bless-her-heart Mabel’s chagrin!  It would be 35 years before I discovered that I had the story all wrong. 

        In May, we visited Obendorf, the birthplace of Silent Night.  The minute we stepped off the train we felt like we were in a fairy tale.  This idyllic Austrian village was friendly, neat, and clean. The Salzach River winds through this beautiful hamlet with the breathtaking snow-covered Alps in the distance. Five months earlier they had celebrated the 200^th anniversary of the iconic Christmas carol and it was evident they had gone all out to accommodate the multitude of visitors.

        A small chapel rests on the site where Silent Night was first heard.  A hand-carved nativity and two beautiful stained glass windows create a quiet and peaceful sanctuary.  The windows honor Father Joseph Mohr, the Parish Priest, and Franz Gruber, the organist of St. Nicholas Church.   Two centuries ago the town was in a crisis.  The bargers made their living transporting salt down the river to Salzburg, but the river had flooded and the bargers were helpless.

        Father Mohr was a man of the people.  He visited their taverns where he ate and drank with them and sang their festive songs.  On Christmas Eve he was thinking about their desperate plight when he remembered a poem he had written two years before during a time of crisis in a previous Parish.  It was the year of 1816, the summer without a sun, as the entire Northern hemisphere was suffering from a global disaster resulting from a super-volcanic eruption in faraway Indonesia.  The volcanic ash had circled the earth, blocking the sun and creating a natural disaster resulting in starvation, poverty, and death. 

        Father Mohr found solace in front of a painting of the holy family.  He reflected on the contrast of the heavenly peace of the Nativity and the pain and suffering that he and his people were experiencing.  He wrote “Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm, all is bright . . .”   

        Finding the words he wrote two years earlier, he went to see his friend Franz Gruber.  Agreeing to compose the music, they decided that they would sing the new song after the Christmas Eve service was over, for a guitar would not be appropriate for formal worship.

        When the Christmas Eve service ended in Obendorf in 1818, no one left the church.  Father Mohr and Mr. Gruber stood before the people and for the first and only time, sang the words that would touch millions of people for the next two centuries.  It wasn’t that the organ was broken; it was that the spirits of the people were broken and this compassionate Priest wanted to leave them with comfort and hope.

        Silent Night is now the most popular Christmas carol of all time.  Tonight, on Christmas Eve, we will sing these beautiful words again.  May they continue to bring comfort, hope, and heavenly peace.