More than any other day, Christmas Eve inspires silence.
The streets empty. The rush subsides. Quiet displaces the commotion of everyday life.
In the stillness, one rediscovers the superiority of silence over verbosity. One recognizes how frequently words are shallow, unnecessary, insincere.
Christmas Eve invites meditation on the quality of each life, in the hours before the world celebrates the greatest life ever lived. The invitation arrives unsolicited.
In silence, one discovers a calming, healing presence. Silence gives birth to the wisest thoughts, the most charitable impulses. However hardened to the world one might be, silence opens a door to reverence, wonder, even awe.
In silence, we detect the better angels of our nature. We see our human possibilities. We glimpse the divine.
— Written by my father on Christmas Eve 1997
