One More “Trans-Siberian” Post

  If you are not familiar with Trans-Siberian Orchestra, their Christmas albums are somewhat musical stories, sometimes with “substories” woven in the middle.  Here is another of my favorites.  It’s about a father, a daughter, a prayer, and what would it be like if Jesus came as a child into a bar and called upon the people to save someone outside?  Initially it bothered me that they would have Jesus going into a bar to call these men to his cause.  Then, I thought, “What kind of world do I think He came to?”  Perhaps “bar” is a good metaphor!  I’ll let them tell the story.  The recording is at the end.  Neon lights are a poor substitution for a star.  Here’s a prayer for everyone this Christmas, far away from their Father’s home, for whom a neon sign is the only star they have.

Come, Christmas, stay, Christmas  
Watch over her this day
Keep her, protect her
From harm now in every way

Shelter her gently,there in your arms she’ll be, until the day
When you bring her back home to me …

After he had heard the prayer
The angel gently set it free
And followed it to the father’s child
In a far away city

And there the girl in desperation
Was searching through the sky
For a star that she could wish upon
But stars were in short supply

And the only light that she could see there shining all alone
Was a neon sign on an old bar
And so on this, she wished she was home

In an old city bar that is never too far
From the places that gather the dreams that have been

In the safety of night with its old neon light
It beckons to strangers and they always come in

And the snow it was falling, the neon was calling
The music was low, and the night,  Christmas Eve

And here was the danger, that even with strangers
Inside of this night it’s easier to believe

Then the door opened wide, and a child came inside
That no one in the bar had seen there before

And he asked did we know that outside in the snow
That someone was lost, standing outside our door

Then the bartender gazed through the smoke and the haze

Through the window and ice, tTo a corner streetlight

Where standing alone by a broken pay phone
Was a girl the child said could no longer get home

And the snow it was falling, the neon was calling
The bartender turned and said , “Not that I care
But how would you know this?”
The child said, “I’ve noticed, If one could be home
They’d be all ready there.”

Then the bartender came out from behind the bar
And in all of his life he was never that far
And he did something else that he thought no one saw
When he took all the cash from the register draw

Then he followed the child to the girl cross the street
And we watched from the bar as they started to speak
Then he called for a cab and he said J.F.K.
Put the girl in the cab and the cab drove away
And we saw in his hand that the cash was all gone
From the light that she had wished upon

If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last

By helping a neighbor or even a stranger

And to know who needs help you need only just ask

Then he looked for the child, but the child wasn’t there
Just the wind and the snow waltzing dreams through the air

So he walked back inside somehow different I think
For the rest of the night no one paid for a drink

And the cynics will say that some neighborhood kid
Wandered in on some bums in the world where they hid

But they weren’t there,so they couldn’t see
By an old neon star
On that night, Christmas Eve

When the snow it was falling, the neon was calling
And in case you should wonder
In case you should care

Why we’re on our own, never went home
On that night of all nights, we were already there

Then all at once inside that night, he saw it all so clear
The answer that he sought so long had always been so near

It’s every gift that someone gives, expecting nothing back
It’s every kindness that we do; each simple little act….

 

Christmas time
And the moments just beginning
From last night
When we’d wished upon a star

If our kindness
This day is just pretending
If we pretend long enough
Never giving up
It just might be who we are

And so it’s good that we remember
Just as soon as we’ve discovered
That the things we do in life
Will always end up touching others