Father, I pray for focus over the next couple of weeks. There is a lot going on and I don’t want to give anything my second best. May I do it all for You. Amen.

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Some of my Facebook friends will have already seen the picture that goes with today’s blog post but the more I thought about it, it lends itself to a story.
First of all, this is a picture of my front yard taken from our little porch. Light fluffy snow had started to fall mid-afternoon before I headed down to load up my high school and middle school students. It wasn’t a crazy, slippery snow (though I was cautious!) but it was just a beautiful softly falling snow.
We had watched the 6:00 pm weather and the larger metropolis south of us had barely a trace. So, I took a picture to show that we had a fair more accumulation – enough to cover the ground. and with a nearly full moon shining through the tree, it made a beautiful photograph.
I recently read an ad on accuweather.com about snow. And I learned a couple of things. Have you ever noticed that after a substantial snow has left the landscape shrouded in white that the great outdoors often becomes noticeably quieter?
As it turns out, there’s a scientific reason behind the calming silence, with the characteristics of snow playing a big role in how sound can travel.
When light, fluffy snow accumulates on the ground, it acts as a sound absorber, dampening sound waves much like commercial sound absorbing products.
A professor of engineering who studies acoustics stated that snow is… porous, and typically porous materials such as fibers and foams…absorb sound pretty well.
So my brain got to buzzing and when I put together the nighttime snow picture, the quietness brought on by snow, and the season in which we find ourselves – Christmas! – my brain immediately flipped to, what else but, Silent Night!
Now don’t take this too literally. I know that Jesus more than likely wasn’t born on December 25th. I know that it’s not unusual for it to snow in Israel but that snow and Christmas aren’t connected like they are in the part of the world where I live.
But just go with the simple connection of how it came into my mind and read a couple of simple but profound verses of this beloved hymn.

Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and Child.
Holy Infant, so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night, holy night,
Son of God, love’s pure light;
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth,
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth.