Poets in the Garden
  • Poets in the Garden
  • About
  • Contact
  • Fly with the Ospreys
  • Pensive Oasis Press
    • New Page

First Week of Advent

12/3/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture

Two Views of Christmas

 Dear Joseph,
 
You asked what Christmas means to me, and I have been thinking about your question the past few days as I have been preparing for the season I love so much. Christmas, for me, is the time of year when people take a break from their everyday concerns and turn to more enjoyable and often more significant activities. It is a time of year when perhaps a few people at least remember to be more tolerant, to show goodwill and charity to others. It is an interlude in our busy lives that allows us to regain perspective, if only for a few weeks.
Christmas is tradition and ritual. We humans seem to find comfort in tradition. It lends a sense of continuity to our lives.
Christmas is memories. When I write cards, I remember the friends who may now be far away but still have a place in my heart. When I decorate the tree or put up my Christmas pictures, I think of the students who made the decorations and pictures for me years ago. When I sing a Christmas carol, it often evokes the memory of the place and time where I first learned the song. One song, strangely, a French one, evokes such a powerful memory that I can practically smell the snowy, treacherous road in Spain thirty years ago when my sister taught me the song while my father drove. 
Christmas is light and decoration, when the world around us becomes a bit more colorful. It is the soft, magic glow of candles.Christmas is music; songs heard only this time of year and thus made special. And this music is some of the finest music known on Earth, all of it carrying a message of hope, joy, faith and goodwill.
Christmas is giving. Yes, I know that is a hackneyed expression, but is is no less a true one for that. While I am buying a gift, I think fondly of the person for whom it is intended, with the hope that they will enjoy it. When I make a gift, it is a gift of my time, my thoughts, and my caring for that person. Thus there is always that slight apprehension, the worry that perhaps they will not like the gift, the gift that came from the self.
Christmas is also receiving. Although this is not my favorite part, it is the obvious corollary to the above. Namely, when I receive a gift, I can know that the donor thought of me while choosing it, and hopefully gives the present from a feeling of caring and not just as a duty.
Christmas is family and friends, a time to renew relationships with those both far and near, to take the time to visit, to write a letter. Perhaps we should do this more at other times of the year, but we don’t, and Christmas serves as a good reminder to us.
Christmas, for me, is a renewal of my faith, a time for the advent wreath and the crèche, each of which holds a special personal significance for me.
Christmas is a time of renewal and rebirth, a time when at least some people on Earth feel a resurgence of hope, of belief in the meaning and goodness of life, a time when many renew their faith, attending the midnight church service, or reminding themselves of the true meaning of the holiday.
These are the reasons why this is my favorite time of the year, and why I wish, with all my heart, that I could give to you at least some of the joy and comfort I derive from the season.
 
Love,
Your Midi
 

Time's Gnawing Tooth

It's that time of year,
When many years ago
In a country far away,
A dear child was born
That was to change the world.
The legacy it left was noble,
Its message was long heeded
But now is well-nigh spent
And darkness has set in.
Nothing seems beyond
The gnawing tooth of time!

-JM


Extravagance

Americans buy too extravagantly,
Use but briefly and discard too readily.
Of the waste too little is reclaimed,
Too much despoils both land and water.

To acquire less and to appreciate longer
Must become a new way of lie,
And to recycle ever more
Is choice no longer but necessity.

​-JM
An epigram a day:

An agnostic knows too much and is sure of too little.

An idealist dreams too much and is otherwise impractical.

A romantic is given to vision and is blind to reality.

A realist has feet and mind on the ground with no interest in flight.

Disbelief is an atheist's belief.

​-JM
To which view do you subscribe? Comments welcome!​
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015

Proudly powered by Weebly
Photos used under Creative Commons from Eric Kilby, tracie7779, USFWS Mountain Prairie, Denis Bourez, jinxmcc, Japanese beauty, voyager2014, Kirt Edblom, nevil zaveri (thank you for 15+M views:), kennethkonica, FaceMePLS, Marianne Serra, irio.jyske, 270862, NASA Hubble, steviep187, Keith Laverack, corsi photo, Howard J Duncan, Luna sin estrellas, Lynda W1, bvi4092, John Brighenti, Kecko, Cambridge Cat, Alexxx1979, ashwin kumar, vastateparksstaff, Marian Elizabeth May, sussexbirder, ell brown, David Meurin, Rod Raglin, Swallowtail Garden Seeds, A_Peach, timo_w2s, acryptozoo, NASA Hubble, lewinb