The lullaby

That Christmas, the slaughter of the innocents having preceded Christmas, a choir sang the Coventry Carol over the BBC from the ruins of the Coventry Cathedral.

[children](https://thehill.com/social-tags/children/) [christmas season](https://thehill.com/social-tags/christmas-season/) [Coventry Carol](https://thehill.com/social-tags/coventry-carol/) [gun deaths](https://thehill.com/social-tags/gun-deaths/) [John Farmer Jr.](https://thehill.com/people/john-farmer-jr/) [Ukraine war](https://thehill.com/social-tags/ukraine-war/) [International](https://thehill.com/opinion/international/) [International](https://thehill.com/opinion/international/) [International](https://thehill.com/opinion/international/) [International](https://thehill.com/opinion/international/) [See All](https://thehill.com/opinion/international/) As in 1940, an acknowledgment of all we have lost in the past year need not negate the hope and joy that Christmas commemorates; it is, rather, a precondition to a genuine rebirth of hope. As the new year approaches, we have been crushed with commercialism this holiday season, encouraged to feel a joy as fake as a crypto ad. Over 1,000 children have been [sacrificed](https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/war-ukraine-has-left-nearly-1000-children-killed-or-injured) in Ukraine to Vladimir Putin’s megalomaniacal ambitions. [John Farmer Jr.](https://law.rutgers.edu/directory/view/jofarmer) is director of the [Eagleton Institute of Politics](https://eagleton.rutgers.edu/) at Rutgers University. But the slaughter of the innocents is commemorated every Dec. The leading causes of death among American children and adolescents are no longer accidents or disease, but A World Health Organization study from 2019 found that over 5 million children under 5 [died that year](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/children-reducing-mortality) from “preventable and treatable causes.” On and on, an infinite regression of ineffable loss. According to David Stone, the canon precentor at Coventry, in [starvation](https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/people-and-poverty/hunger-and-obesity/how-many-people-die-from-hunger-each-year) every 10 seconds, a yearly total of 3.1 million. Jesus escaped their fate, the story goes, because his parents were warned and fled to Egypt. The account is most likely apocryphal.