This week I was able to purchase a copy of my favorite christmas album of all time. Your Heart is Where Christmas is Found. I first heard this album in the early 1990's when I attended a Truth concert at Christian Life Assembly of God in Camp Hill. In those days everything was cassette tape so that's what I bought. Over the next couple years I got other copies of the tape and gave them as gifts. Then CDs came along and as tapes were replaced I had fewer and fewer places to listen to my Truth Christmas album. Since about 2003, the only place I could go to listen to it any more was in our van. Last Christmas we replaced the van and with it went my last tape player of any significance. I had been looking for this on CD but since it is OOP, that's out of print for those of you who have never scoured the internet for something you really have to have, very good and very scarce. I could find people that would sell it to me for $150 but occasionally love does have limits. I perservered and found it last week for a bargain price which was still probably twice what it cost new.
What could be so special about this that would make someone write a blog about it. To me this album captures everything that Christmas is. There is only one other album that does that and that is John Michael Talbot's, The Birth of Jesus - A Christmas Celebration.
The first track is Celebration of Joy. This starts out with heralding trumpets announcing Joy to the World. The angelic voices of the female members of Truth transport the listener into the stable as they sing The First Noel and Angels We Have Heard on High. They bookend the piece by concluding with the trumpeting of Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
Caroler's Song tells the Christmas story from the manger to our homes. It craftly weaves familiar Christmas lyrics into the songs refrain that keeps you singing it long after the CD stops spinning.
Track three is a combination of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. This is done as only
Johnny Mann or Percy Faith could do.
The title track Your Heart is Where Christmas is Found is huge. It's part, O'Henry's 'Gift of the Magi', part Peter, Paul and Mary 'Christmas Dinner' and part seasonal magic. The song tells of those less fortunate ones in life and how the community of God takes care of them at Christmas. There are so many object lessons in this song that you'll need to listen to it over and over to be truly touched by it. God will minister to you through this each time you listen to it.
Track five is a very tradition rendition of O Come All Ye Faithful. Truth conclude this traditional carol with a new verse of praise.
The Nashvill String Machine is the orchestra used throughout the album. Track six features their talents as they provide upbeat renditions of Silver Bells, a song first featured in the Bob Hope movie 'The Lemon Drop Kid', and Carol of the Bells.
The cost of the album is reclaimed when the track seven is heard. This is the most thought provoking Christmas song ever written, sung or heard. The Way He Came touches your mind, stirs your heart and refreshes your soul with the magnificance, the true wonderment, the true amazement of how God chose to reveal Himself to us. It leaves you with a sense of awe and in a state of worship.
A quick paced version of Sleigh Ride rivals that of The Boston Pops.
Truth performs an accapella medley of all-time classics O Little Town of Bethleham, Away in a Manger and Silent Night. They prove once again that the most beautiful instrument man has at his disposal is the human voice.
The album is brought to a fitting conclusion with O Come, O Come Emmanuel and Michael W. Smith's Emmanuel. The mystery of the Middle
East is captured with the use of castinets. The intro provides the feeling of riding upon the back of a camel crossing the desert. As the whole of Truth joins in on Emmanuel, breaking in singing "Rejoice" with the same enthusiasm that the angels used when they appeared to the shepherds. This track weaves a tapestry of music and lyric that leaves your heart and spirit panting for more.
And that's why Your Heart is Where Christmas is Found is my favorite Christmas album. - Dan
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