Written by Alan Goodman, from the Village Church.
I was 8 years old when WW II ended. I lived in the greater London area where most of our neighborhood row housing streets were just rubble from German bombing. As a child, I played in bombed out buildings – not really aware of the dreadful state of things since that was all I knew growing up during WW II. I routinely found dead bodies and parts of bodies not picked up after bombing raids – all part of my childhood.
As a child, I was terrified every time the loud sirens would go off indicating a new bombing attack. My childhood recollection of peace was only as a very young child before the war started. Fear and anxiety became the daily dreads you had all the time. I loved to sing, and Christmas was the only time of year where a group of us boys would sing Christmas Carols around our poor neighborhood for even pennies to give to our parents to help out. The message from these Carols was so out of place with the death and destruction around us but these words gave us hope at a seemingly hopeless time.
I had a soprano voice and sang in a boys’ choir in a Church of England Cathedral. I had black and white robes that I loved to wear. The richness of this music was absolutely incredible in this cathedral. To this young heart, it was music that was expressing God’s love and tranquility in an upside-down world – just the opposite to real life. Christmas was the only part of the year that gave me that deep “Shalom” peace every year during WW II. Christmas was the best time of the year for me to replace my “world” with God’s “world.”
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