I hung out with the Moores at the nursing home last night. As every time, Father taught me in ways i never even expected.

So much of me wants to go into detail, but I feel the beauty isn't in the description of the place, or the events, yet the simplicity of it all, exclaims the greatness and the beauty of our God.

Lately, I have been infatuated with histories of carols, due to a book I got from Sams Club (Then Sings my Soul)

One in particular is I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day...
read this history:

The ravages of the war directly inspired another carol, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," which was penned by Maine native Henry Wadsworth Longfellow around 1862. The sadness of this song reflects Longfellow's grief over the 1861 death of his second wife (burned to death at home when candles ignited her clothing), his bitter opposition to the war, and the sorrow of his son Charles having been gravely injured in battle. The poet's staunch Yankee views also show through in the original version of the text, from which three particularly partisan stanzas were dropped when the poem was set to music in 1872.

The excised stanzas include such lines as "Then from each black, accursed mouth / The cannon thundered in the South" and "It was as if an earthquake rent / The hearth-stones of a continent." Retained, however, were the following two poignant passages:

"'There is not peace on earth,' I said
'For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men"

and

"Then pealed the bells more loud and deep
'God is not dead, nor doth He sleep,
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.'"