A Brilliant Evening

It was a packed house at Cole Concert Hall. The students were dressed in their best school attire. Parents and grandparents looked on expectantly. Musical instruments waited, ready to be brought to life. Then poems and songs rang through the hall, and applause echoed back. The Regents Academy Evening of Music and Recitation was a brilliant evening.

Let me express my heartfelt thanks to the Regents teachers, who did a superb job preparing the students to recite and sing. Our music teachers, Mrs. Carolyn Andrews and Miss Emily Alders, showed off a semester’s practice and instruction. The High School Vocal Ensemble and String Ensemble both performed wonderfully. The audience was enthusiastic and attentive.

And let me say, most of all, how proud I am of our students. Simply put, there are no better students in East Texas. With a display of talent, poise, and joy, they presented musical and poetic pieces that reflected the beauty of God’s creation, the wonder of childhood and adventure, and the spirit of the Christmas season. Truth, goodness, and beauty shone out from the stage of Cole Hall as they performed.

The Christmas season is a season of joy, as we celebrate the incarnation of our Lord, and I hope the Regents Christmas program brought you great joy on Thursday night.

Let me share one of my favorite Christmas poems and wish you and your family a joyous Advent season and a Merry Christmas.

The Nativity
By C.S. Lewis

Among the oxen (like an ox I’m slow)
I see a glory in the stable grow
Which, with the ox’s dullness might at length
Give me an ox’s strength.

Among the asses (stubborn I as they)
I see my Saviour where I looked for hay;
So may my beastlike folly learn at least
The patience of a beast.

Among the sheep (I like a sheep have strayed)
I watch the manger where my Lord is laid;
Oh that my baa-ing nature would win thence
Some wooly innocence!