Tim Woodcock writes: It’s an oldie but a goodie. Here is Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Darkling Thrush,” which was written to mark not just the end of the year but also the end of the century (the 1800s): it’s an accumulation of darkness, counteracted by a glimmer of hope at the end. I remember first being introduced to it in high school but I hadn’t seen enough of life to really appreciate it back then. The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy   I leant upon a coppice gate       When Frost was spectre-grey, And Winter's dregs made desolate       The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky       Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh       Had sought their household fires.   The land's sharp features seemed to be       The Century's corpse outleant, His crypt the c...

  Tim Woodcock writes: I am just (re-)reading Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan’s book The First Christmas , which seeks to chip away at the sentimentality that surrounds Christmas and to rediscover the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke primarily as stories. Encountering this passage about why December 25 is the date on the calendar has become Christmas Day, I thought it would be worth sharing. Borg and Crossan write: Nobody knows the day, the month, or the season of the year of Jesus’s birth. The date of December 25 was not decided upon until the middle of the 300s. Before then Christians celebrated his birth at different times – including March, April, May and November. But around the year 350 Pope Julius in Rome declared December 25 as the date, thereby integrating it with a Roman winter solstice festival celebrating the “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun.” … To say the obvious, light in the darkness is central to the Christian celebration of Christmas. Jesus is born ...

Marjie Smith shared this mighty impressive video of her daughter Carol Houghton performing the Carol of the Bells. It combines eight different tracks to create this virtuosic performance. Carol - along with Marjie’s other children, Sue, Sally, Kenneth III, Nancy, Joanne, and Patricia – grew up in Second Pres. Marjie notes that Carol was an accompanist of 2PC’s children's choir when Dianne Ladendecker was the director. She is a graduate of Westminster Choir College where she was a member of the famed Bell Choir directed by Allured (composer and arranger).  She works as a librarian at Princeton University and Director of Music at Ewing Covenant Presbyterian Church where she is choir and handbell director and organist.  Carol lives in Titusville, NJ, with her husband Eric Houghton, who teaches piano at Westminster Conservatory and is Director of Music at a Lutheran church near where they live. Eric is a well-known composer whose works include The Victory Songs performed...

A haunting song recommended by Nancy Quigley, which she notes has "a lovely harmony and words of hope."