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Today's
quotation:
Are
you willing to forget what you have done for other people,
and to remember what other people have done for you?
o
remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are
growing old? Are you willing to believe that love is
the
strongest thing in the world, stronger than hate,
stronger
than evil, stronger than death? Then you can
keep
Christmas! But you can never keep it alone.
Henry
van Dyke
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Today's
Meditation:
Henry
makes us stop and think here-- after all, Christmas is a
holiday for us all, isn't it? And is he saying that
there are conditions to keeping Christmas, that we can't
expect to be able to do so until we meet certain
criteria? And can he possibly be right?
I
believe that the answer to this question depends upon how
we see the holiday and what we see as "keeping
Christmas." If we see Christmas as a commercial
holiday that's about buying and getting gifts, listening
to Christmas songs, and decking the halls with boughs of
holly, then there really can be no conditions upon the
keeping of Christmas.
But
if we see the holiday as a holy day, if we take it to
symbolize the coming of love to our planet, the coming of
one of the most important people to walk the planet, who
taught and modeled love and compassion and our own amazing
potential--whether or not we agree on the person's
divinity-- then there must be more to keeping the holiday
in our hearts and spirits than simply participating in the
festivities. There must be more to the spirit of the
season than gifts and carols and decorations.
And
if there is more to it, then we must acknowledge that the
heart of the season is love. And if we're to keep
the season well, then we must be loving human beings, kind
and compassionate people who see more to the world than
its trappings. We must believe in the inherent
goodness of the people we meet and see, and we must walk
and act in the spirit of love all the time.
Yes, there
is more to "keeping" Christmas than simply
taking part in the festivities. That's because
Christmas is so much more than "just" a
holiday. The question is, do we treat it as such?
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For further
thought:
Best
of all, Christmas means a spirit of love, a time when the
love of God and the love of our fellow people should prevail
over all hatred and bitterness, a time when our thoughts
and deeds and the spirit of our lives manifest the
presence of God.
George
F. McDougall
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