SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Holidays ran into each other for our multifaith family this week. The first night of Hanukkah fell on Wednesday, Christmas Day. Our Hanukkah candles shimmer in the light of our Christmas tree. We know they are different holidays, but in a way, each reminds us of the power of light in a world that so often seems dark.
Hanukkah celebrates the light said to burn for eight nights from a lone vial of oil during the rededication of the second temple in Jerusalem, and Christmas recalls the bright star and the night that guided people to a barn in Bethlehem where an infant was born and called a king.
So we've uttered quite a few prayers this week. We moved from the words in a Hanukkah blessing, Baruch atah Adonai, blessed are you our God who commanded us to kindle the Hanukkah lights, to a Christmas prayer that says, Lord, we praise you for the great wonders you have sent us - for a shining star and angel song, for an infant's cry in a lowly manger.
The faiths in our family include skepticism, but we have come to think of prayers not as a list of wishes hurled into the heavens so much as messages we send into our own hearts. Prayers can remind us of what has lasting worth in this life - the hope we hold for each child and our longing to bring light into the world.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A CHILD IS BORN")
TONY BENNETT: (Singing) Now, out of the night, soft as the dawn into the light.
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