We’ve enjoyed a somewhat slower pace during the month of December. Tammy, Arianna and I have been the only ones here at home for Christmas and New Years. We checked out Santa’s flight path on the NORAD website. (http://www.noradsanta.org/) This is a holiday tradition among families in the area. We had a wonderful stake Christmas fireside with music and spoken word on December 14. Given the fact that we don’t have a great deal to share in the way of news this month, I’d like to share a message which I had the chance to deliver as closing remarks during our Christmas fireside.
“The year was 1914. It was Christmas Eve in Belgium’s Flanders Field. German troops sought shelter inside hastily dug trenches only half a football field away from their British, Scottish, French and Belgian enemies. Both sides were wallowing in a freezing mire of mud. No Man’s Land, a small neutral area between the opposing armies, had been the site of fierce fighting and large scale human carnage during the previous days. Men on both sides of this front line could not help but have a degree of sympathy for their opponents who were having just as miserable a time as they were.
Then it began. The German soldiers began to place miniature Christmas trees lit with candles on the parapet of their trenches. They continued with their celebration by singing Silent Night. The Scottish troops in the trenches across from them responded by singing English carols. The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were calls for visits across the ‘No Man's Land’ where small gifts were exchanged. The artillery in the region fell silent that night. Alfred Anderson, at age 109 in 2005, widely believed to be the last surviving soldier to have heard the guns fall silent that night along the Western Front said, ‘All I’d heard for two months in the trenches was the hissing, cracking and whining of bullets in flight, machine-gun fire and distant German voices….But there was a dead silence that morning, right across the land as far as you could see.’
This informal truce allowed a breathing spell where recently-fallen soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties. Proper burials took place as soldiers from both sides mourned the dead together and paid their respects. At one funeral in No Man's Land, soldiers from both sides gathered and read a passage from the 23rd Psalm:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. (Psalms 23)
The cessation of hostilities on Christmas Day stretched along the Western Front. In some places it lasted for several days. In others, it concluded as it had begun, by mutual agreement. Captain C. I. Stockwell, of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers recalled how, after a truly "Silent Night," he fired three shots into the air at 8.30 a.m. on December 26th and then climbed onto his parapet. The officer who had exchanged gifts with him the previous day also appeared on the German parapet. They bowed, saluted one another, and out of a sense of duty to their respective countries, climbed back into their trenches.
Even amidst the hostilities of World War I, these soldiers on both sides of the conflict longed for that feeling of peace, goodwill and brotherhood which they had experienced during Christmas seasons of the past. Perhaps because of the bloodshed and carnage they had witnessed over the previous months, that feeling of peace, goodwill and brotherhood had a particularly poignant meaning for them.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)
May each of us during this Christmas season, and throughout this coming year, strive with greater resolve to witness to our Father, our gratitude for the Gift of His Son, the Prince of Peace, through the manner in which we treat one another. For remember, we are all precious in His sight. I bear solemn witness of the reality of the life, death, resurrection and divine mission of him whose birth we celebrate, and I do so in his holy name, even Jesus Christ, amen.”
To all of our family members, may you each enjoy a wonderful new year.
Much love,
The Woodwards
