Gabriel's message

By Tom Ehrich

I tune in a Pandora station called "Classical Christmas," and up comes a Cambridge Singers recording of "Gabriel's Message."

It's lovely, very English, and just right for the season.

But I know an even more perfect message from Gabriel. I mean the sounds of life that emanate from a tiny baby born on Thanksgiving Day in California.

Mostly crying, my son tells me. Feed me, change me, hold me -- all expressed in the one anthem of infancy. Welcome to life, young Gabriel! Your grandmother and I ache to hear your voice.

Babies change everything in the homes that God assigns them. Life is a powerful force. Babies remind us that God is never done. In life, in old age, in death, in the daily rounds that wear us down and lift us up, in the confusions and in the simple moments of clarity, God has more to say.

God's anthem is wonderfully varied and complex. So is our human anthem in response. But maybe it all comes down to Gabriel's message: feed me, change me, hold me.