Today is Christmas Day.

In a book that is known to have been compiled in the year 354 A.D., these words appear in an entry for the year 336: “25 Dec.: natus Christus in Betleem Judeae.” (Translated: December 25, Christ born in Bethlehem, Judea.) Thus, since some time in the 4th Century, Christians have celebrated the mass of Christ’s birth on December 25.

By the 6th Century, the December 25 date for the birth of Christ was common knowledge, so common that the monk who is credited with inventing the concept of the B.C./A.D. calendar, Dionysus Exiguus, wrote that “December 25 in the year 1” was the date of Christ’s birth.
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Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute hochheilige Paar.
Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!—Joseph Mohr, “Stille Nacht”

Father Joseph Mohr, a parish priest in Oberndorf, Austria, composed a poem he called “Stille Nacht,” and brought it to a local organist, Franz Xaver Gruber, to see if he could write a tune for it. Gruber did. On this date in 1818, Mohr and Gruber debuted their song, Gruber on guitar, during a Christmas Eve Mass.

John Freeman Young translated it into English decades later, and published “Silent Night” in 1859.
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No one grumbles among the oyster clans,
And lobsters play their bone guitars all summer.
Only we, with our opposable thumbs, want
Heaven to be, and God to come, again.
There is no end to our grumbling; we want
Comfortable earth and sumptuous Heaven.
But the heron standing on one leg in the bog
Drinks his dark rum all day, and is content.—Robert Bly, “Wanting Sumptuous Heavens

Robert Bly is 90 today.

A film, Robert Bly: A Thousand Years of Joy, was released in 2015 and is appearing on PBS stations:
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