Sarah McLachlan, Wintersong

I am a music lover and a semi-retired Lutheran pastor. My wife and I are helping our daughter nurture her two toddlers as her soldier husband is away preparing for military service in Iraq. The music I listen to inspires my prayer and challenges my trust in God during times of personal and family stress and national uncertainty.

Sarah McLachlan released Wintersong in 2006 but I only discovered it in October 2008 while searching for a contemporary Christmas album which would enhance my appreciation of the holy season as much as Joan Baez 'No l and Kathy Mattea ' s Good News continue to do after many years. I chanced upon Wintersong in a CD store where I was buying Joan ' s superb Day After Tomorrow, which I have also reviewed with excitement. If you desire inspiring and spiritually challenging music, you will appreciate both of these 21st-century treasures.

Sarah proclaims the universal message of traditional Christmas carols by transfiguring them into a variety of the world ' s musical styles: Spirituals, Celtic meditations (very appropriate for someone named McLachlan), Hildegard von Bingen-like medieval chants, Native American dance rhythms, jazz, country and 1960s American folk songs. Sarah ' s carols depart from the familiar versions just enough to make me contemplate the actual meaning of the words in way that I never seem to do when I sing them or hear them sung in the usual way.

Although I have never been a lover of ' secular ' Christmas standards, Sarah ' s way of singing ' I ' ll Be Home for Christmas ' and ' Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas ' reminds me that there is a deep, sometimes sad but sometimes peaceful yearning in the hearts of those who wish they could be with their loved ones at this time of year. As with the carols, I find myself actually hearing the words of these songs for the first time as Sarah sings them.

I took the liberty of e-mailing President-Elect Obama and his family to tell them that my Christmas greeting for them is the text of John Lennon ' s and Yoko Ono ' s ' Happy Christmas (Was Is Over) ' as Sarah sings it at the beginning of Wintersong. The song expresses my prayer for what our new leader may accomplish during his time of service.

I am intrigued by the songs which are completely new or new to me. Joni Mitchell ' s ' River ' expresses the guilt which many of us experience when we have hurt a loved one. That kind of guilt hits me harder at Christmas time than at any other time and I know others who feel the same. Gordon Lightfoot ' s ' Song For A Winter ' s Night ' is pure loneliness, but the words leave me wondering whether the beloved is away in the military as my daughter ' s husband will be or is estranged from the singer or maybe even is dead. So many levels to be lonely on.

Sarah ' s own ' Wintersong ' appears at first to be sung to a loved one in heaven: ' Love and happiness surround you as you throw your arms up to the sky. 'And the singer looks up and sees the loved one ' s star. But then I realize that the singer is only looking up at a star on the Christmas tree, not at a star in the sky. And I wonder where the beloved is, in heaven or still on this earth. Wherever he may be, the separation is more painful at Christmas than at other seasons.

There is a melancholy feeling about the album, but Sarah transfigures it into a genuine Christmas spirit. It seems that the birth of the Savior gives the singer enough Christmas joy and spiritual strength to overcome her feelings of guilt and separation and loneliness and to share in the peace which the season is intended to give. Many of us celebrate Christmas, at least in some years, in the midst of troubled lives and troubled loves in a troubled world. But we can celebrate anyway, even if in a restrained and sometimes bittersweet manner. We celebrate because HE makes a difference in our world and gives meaning to our lives.

Sarah approaches the songs in a celebrating yet restrained and sometimes bittersweet way. The final song, Vince Guaraldi ' s and Lee Mendelson ' s ' Christmas Time Is Here, ' says it well. It begins, ' Christmas time is here, happiness and cheer, ' and ends, ' Oh that we could always see such spirit through the year. 'Yes, Sarah, we can see it, thanks to you.