{"id":71568,"date":"2022-12-20T15:50:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-20T15:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/celebrating-the-love-and-joy-of-the-christmas-carol\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T09:55:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T09:55:41","slug":"celebrating-the-love-and-joy-of-the-christmas-carol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/celebrating-the-love-and-joy-of-the-christmas-carol\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating the love and joy of the Christmas carol"},"content":{"rendered":"

The love, joy and peace of Christmas that we experience through our favourite carols was celebrated by the Rev Diana Hall on BBC Radio Scotland\u2019s Thought For The Day<\/em> this week.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cWhether it\u2019s at a school assembly, a concert or a church service many of us will find ourselves singing carols this week,\u201d said the Rector of St Anne\u2019s in Dunbar, pictured right. \u201cAnd anyone who knows, While Shepherds Watched<\/em>, or We Three Kings of Orient Are<\/em> carries with them part of the Christian story.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some, the moment we know it\u2019s Christmas is when we hear a child singing Away in a Manger<\/em>; for others it\u2019s the soloist in Once in Royal David\u2019s City<\/em>.\u00a0 My own favourite line comes from O Little Town of Bethlehem<\/em>. When I hear the words \u2018The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight\u2019 my spirits rise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever it is that helps you to feel festive, may we all have a chance to experience a special moment this week when we know the love, joy and peace of Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The full broadcast can be heard here<\/a>\u00a0at the 1 hour 21 minute mark.<\/p>\n

\"\"Then on Thursday 22 December, Thought For The Day came from Bishop David Chillingworth, pictured right, who asked: ‘What\u2019s the point of a Christmas song of a peace when so many people are struggling with the rising cost of living and all the other challenges which face us?’<\/p>\n

The former Primus highlighted the time of conflict we live in, but reminded us that the times into which Jesus was born were also far from peaceful. And he found hope in relatively recent history.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristmas reminds us that it is possible to overcome seemingly unending confict \u2013 that we can suspend and sometimes even resolve our difficulties,\u201d said Bishop David.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt Christmas 1914, soldiers came out of the trenches of the First World War and played football in No Man\u2019s Land. In 1974 and 1975, I was living in Northern Ireland and there were Christmas truces in the long terrorist campaign. Even a short breathing space was a sign it didn\u2019t always have to be this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

He concluded: \u201cWe may feel that this period of peace and goodwill almost mocks us \u2013 because life will surely return to normal after Christmas. But it is a sign \u2013 a reminder \u2013 of the deeper meaning of Christmas. The birth of Jesus \u2013 the Prince of Peace – is a sign that God wants to bring to us a deeper peace \u2013 a Shalom \u2013 a new and better way of living.\u201d<\/p>\n

The full Thought For The Day<\/em> from Bishop David can be heard here<\/a> at the 1:23:30 mark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The love, joy and peace of Christmas that we experience through our favourite carols was celebrated by the Rev Diana Hall on BBC Radio Scotland\u2019s Thought For The Day this week. \u201cWhether it\u2019s at a school assembly, a concert or a church service many of us will find ourselves singing carols this week,\u201d said the […]","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71568"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73116,"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71568\/revisions\/73116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}