“The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them.” (Proverbs).
“Mozart experienced more than he expressed” (SH 213).
During the Cubam missile crisis of 1962, people were bombarded by newspaper headlines, radio and tv broadcasts all focussed upon the nuclear annihilation of the world. Like the rest of the world, New Yorkers had also been saturated with these relentless doomsday reports. It seemed so real, so logical, so inescapable that the Cold War between Russia and America had now at last heated up, and there was nothing anyone could do to restrain it from setting the whole world on fire.
Walking the streets of NYC, observing all the glum faces passing by him, composer Noel Regeny wondered how he could possibly write a new Christmas song, assigned to him by a producer. But then suddenly, amidst all of this intense fatalism, he saw two babies smiling at each other from their sidewalk strollers, and immediately a song came to him in a flood of inspiration: “Said the night wind to the little lamb, ‘Do see what I see?’ … Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy, ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?'” Shortly after this, the Cuban missile crisis was over.
At the beginning of every day I must ask myself the same question, “Where art thou? To what sound have you attuned your ears today, Truth or error? Are your ears attuned to the still, samll voice of the Lamb of God? Or to the inharmonious messages of mortal mind, broadcast day and night so insistently? Thus Mrs. Eddy admonishes, “Do you not hear from all mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding it before your gaze continually . . .” (SH 248)
Noel Regeny had experienced great sufferings during World War II. Nevertheless, by the grace of God, he was able to transcend those traumatic memories, choosing to live in the now, a state of harmonious receptivity that directed him to 2 bright angels on the gray streets of a city which, like so many others all over the world, had bought into a tale of discord. Through that harmonious encounter he was then able to tell the true story, uplifting, as never before, the God of “All-Is-Well!”
See https://www.franciscanmedia.org/do-you-hear-what-i-hear-the-story-behind-the-song/ for more details.