I’ve been watching Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica. [I'm not linking to any BSG sites because I highly, highly recommend that you don't read about it, just watch it from the very beginning and be surprised. Its very good- fairly dark.] It was the perfect activity for my long Christmas flight and made the 8 hours go incredibly fast.
The first 4 episodes of season 3 may be my favorite ever. The people are at war and they are desperate, but, for the people involved, knowing who was good and who was bad afterwards becomes increasingly impossible.
People are in terrible situations with terrible options and almost no one is blameless. It was the clearest depiction of the hellishness and humaness of war that I have ever seen. When I think about war, I feel so, so sad about how we humans can treat each other.
It reminds me of one of my favorite Christmas songs ever: I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day.
It was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. From Wikipedia:
Longfellow wrote “Christmas Bells” on Christmas Day 1863 in the midst of the American Civil War and the news of his son Charles Appleton Longfellow having suffered wounds as a soldier in the Battle of New Hope Church, VA during the Mine Run Campaign. He had suffered the great loss of his wife two years prior to an accident with fire. His despair in the following years was recorded in his journal.
The song is based on the poem Longfellow’s poem Christmas Bells.
I HEARD the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
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.”
I remember reading part of this poem in Ray Bradbury’s book Something Wicked This Way Comes. I love that book. It is also populated by very human people. And by “human” I mean flawed, and sometimes wicked, and sometimes sad and yearning for goodness. There is darkness, and there is hope. Its a great, great book. If you haven’t read it yet, read it! In the month of October when it is meant to be read.
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