Left In Lowell

Holiday Open Thread

2 Responses to “Holiday Open Thread”

1. Tim Little Says:
   December 24th, 2008 at 11:36 am

   Wishing you all a happy Chanukah, happy Solstice/Yule, happy Kwanzaa, merry Christmas, and all the joys and blessings of the season!

   Here are a few words that always resonate deeply with me at this time of year. I trust they will ring true for others, regardless of which particular holiday is celebrated:
   ———————–
   “The Shortest Day”
   by Susan Cooper

   So the shortest day came, and the year died,
   And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
   Came people singing, dancing,
   To drive the dark away.
   They lighted candles in the winter trees;
   They hung their homes with evergreen;
   They burned beseeching fires all night long
   To keep the year alive,
   And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
   They shouted, reveling.
   Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
   Echoing behind us - Listen!!
   All the long echoes sing the same delight,
   This shortest day,
   As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
   They carol, feast, give thanks,
   And dearly love their friends,
   And hope for peace.
   And so do we, here, now,
   This year and every year.
   Welcome Yule!!
   ———————–
   From a letter to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi on Christmas Eve, 1513.
   by Fra Giovanni Giocondo

   There is nothing I can give you which you have not got, but there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.

   No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven!

   No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!

   The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see - and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

   Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by the covering, cast them away as ugly, or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power.

   Welcome it, grasp it, touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

   Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty - beneath its covering - that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.

   Courage, then, to claim it, that is all. But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home.

   And so, at this time, I greet you. Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.
   ———————–
   In peace,
   - T.

2. HowieJames Says:
   December 25th, 2008 at 12:09 pm

   Happy Holidays To LIL ,looking forward to January 21st !

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