Tomes, Billy Collins

It’s been a rough week month, and I haven’t had time to read a new book, or do much of anything that wasn’t absolutely essential, but I think January is over? Is it? Are we done with January, because I am DONE with January. Come back in a couple of weeks when we’re firmly in February and I’ll have something for you, I promise. In the meantime, I’m going to swim in a little Collins and try to get my head on straight. Feel free to join me!

Tomes, Billy Collins

There is a section in my library for death
and another for Irish history,
a few shelves for the poetry of China and Japan,
and in the center a row of imperturbable reference books,
the ones you can turn to anytime,
when the night is going wrong
or when the day is full of empty promise.

I have nothing against
the thin monograph, the odd query,
a note on the identity of Chekhov’s dentist,
but what I prefer on days like these
is to get up from the couch,
pull down The History of the World,
and hold in my hands a book
containing nearly everything
and weighing no more than a sack of potatoes,
eleven pounds, I discovered one day when I placed it
on the black, iron scale
my mother used to keep in her kitchen,
the device on which she would place
a certain amount of flour,
a certain amount of fish.

Open flat on my lap
under a halo of lamplight,
a book like this always has a way
of soothing the nerves,
quieting the riotous surf of information
that foams around my waist
even though it never mentions
the silent labors of the poor,
the daydreams of grocers and tailors,
or the faces of men and women alone in single rooms-

even though it never mentions my mother,
now that I think of her again,
who only last year rolled off the edge of the earth
in her electric bed,
in her smooth pink nightgown
the bones of her fingers interlocked,
her sunken eyes staring upward
beyond all knowledge,
beyond the tiny figures of history,
some in uniform, some not,
marching onto the pages of this incredibly heavy book. 

Oh, you know…

I’m not organized enough (anymore) to have written about any of the five or six amazing books I’ve read this month. I meant to, but then, insert your preferred excuse here (dear friends visiting, cancer watch, baby watch, buying socks for the homeless, sending gifts to family far away, trying and failing to find a present for my husband, baking cookies). I’m sorry about that because I really do feel like I’m depriving you of some wonderful reads, but you’ll just have to wait until the new year. I’m guessing most of you have stacks of unread books sitting around your house anyway, so you’ll make it another two weeks, but next year! Next year, I’ll definitely probably possibly be more organized.

In the meantime, here’s a reflection on Advent written by my mother in 2012 that I read every year, and every year, it resonates more. No matter who you are, or what your life looks like right now, I wish you a peaceful end of 2017.

God, who asks
“do you want it gift wrapped?”
and means a choice of sunset

or a purple nighttime sky with stars,thank you for all the presents,
the sweet ordinary things —
elbows, chocolate,
toothbrushes, and running shoes,
people who become EMTs,
beagles in bed, old cranky prophets
who won’t let us forget justice,

and the hard re-giftings
possible in things you did not give –
road rage, Parkinson’s disease,
the deporting of our neighbors,
death by suicide
of someone we love.

Tie us with the curling ribbon
tendril of your love
when something scrooges us
and we can’t hold ourselves
together alone.

Maren Tirabassi

Happy Thanksgiving

The Summer Day, Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

This is, perhaps, a strange piece to share today (unless you’re in the southern hemisphere, in which case, enjoy the coming summer months!). It’s Thanksgiving in the US, and this year, we have no elaborate meal, no friends stopping by, no plans other than to attempt to teach our oldest how to make pie and stuffing (the only two foods my husband can’t do without). A part of me wishes we had the distraction of a busy day. Activity is a pleasant diversion, and we certainly have much to be grateful for, and to celebrate.

Right now, however, we’re also struggling to balance the joy in our life with the immense sadnesses of several of our closest friends. They are not my stories to share, but I carry them heavy in my heart right now. On a day of indulgence, family, and tradition, I’m finding it hard to do anything beyond live in the tiny moments – the grasshopper in my hand moments – because the bigger picture is too daunting, and shadowy, and hard.

The tiny moments though, they make up my days with the frenetic love of toddler attention spans. They are tiny fingers clasped around mine, buoying me through tearfilled phone calls. They are ten second snuggles, and unexpected baby belly laughs, and the blossoming of brotherhood. They are a house, clean for five minutes before a whirlwind of adventure displaces every little thing, and a sink overflowing while we stroll in the sun. They are the careful attention of a two year old sous chef, and the flinging of small bodies into outstretched arms.

They are my salvation right now, and for them, I am thankful.

Shoulders, Naomi Shihab Nye

Shoulders

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.

We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.

This will be my last post until September. I’m taking parental leave, and I know that despite my best intentions, the likelihood of getting back here before the unofficial “start of the year” (for me, the year has and will always begin at Labor Day) is a pipe dream. Having one kiddo was busy – having a newborn and a toddler, I expect, will be chaos.

That being said, I never get tired of sharing Nye’s work with a larger audience. She has been one of my favorite poets (although she’s a wonderful author of fiction, as well) for over a decade now, and I’m constantly stumbling over her words, tucked away in some notebook or word doc I’ve saved, at the perfect moment. For me, this is that time. I’m on the precipice of a life change I can hardly imagine but feel deeply blessed to have, and at the same time, I’m concerned that our second child will be born into a world so dramatically different than our first.

Our first was a child born of Summer (I still remember being moved by that idea of “eternal” plenty when I read A Game of Thrones back in 2001). Although the world was far from “fixed,” it was still a hopeful period for this country. The rights of many were being recognized in ways they hadn’t before, and the political spirit was leaning toward uplifting the most vulnerable rather than trampling them. My own life, and the lives of many of my nearest and dearest were in celebratory periods, and I felt a great confidence – not only in myself, but in friends and stranger alike. I floated through pregnancy enjoying a sense of alignment with the world that I don’t think I felt before or since.

This time around, I’m much more anxious. The things I hear and see, the lengths people have to go to to be recognized with simple dignity, the pain I’m witness to in the people closest to me – it has been a far cry from the sunny peace of two years ago. I feel a sense of powerlessness and exhaustion to make the kind of statements I want to make for myself, my family, my neighbors, and those around the world who are suffering horrendously. And yet, this little wiggle, this busy kid I carry with me everywhere, he offers me great comfort. He is a reminder, when I feel overwhelmed, of my ability to empathize with other mothers no matter our differences, to have patience with the greater questions, to be as kind to those I meet as I hope they will be one day to him.

It’s a lot to get from a little person who hasn’t made an official appearance yet, but I’m profoundly grateful. The serenity of the world may not surround me right now, but I can still find it, still breathe deeper remembering my role – not just as a parent, but as a human being – is not to fix everything or celebrate always, but to keep my eyes open for opportunities to care for those who cross my path.

 

Be well, my book loving friends. I look forward to rejoining you in a few months and hope in the meantime, you find great books to transport and transform you.

On Turning Ten, Billy Collins

I had a book I was going to post about today – that I should be posting about, since I promised my friend John, and his editor, that my review would be up – but the reading of it has been so sad, so perfectly January, that I haven’t been able to bring myself to rush through. It’s not a long book, and it’s not nearly as aching a story as his first (if you haven’t read it, and you can bear a brilliantly written tragedy, you should), but it’s harder because he and his family are friends now, while in 2014, he was barely an acquaintance.

I’ll have it done by February, for sure, and I look forward to telling you about it, because John’s one of those writer friends I love and hate for being so damn good at what he does. In the meantime, here’s a little bittersweet Collins to carry you into what promises to be a divisive weekend.

On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I’m coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light–
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

It’s almost Christmas, and for once, we’re not getting on a plane (at least not until next week). We won’t see our families until New Year’s, instead opting for a cozy holiday with our own tree and the company of our dear friends and neighbors on Christmas morning. In the past, we’ve alternated between my husband’s family in Colorado and mine in New Hampshire, and this would have been my family’s year; however, this Sunday marks a momentous day for me and mine – the day of my mother’s retirement from 37 years of ministry in the UCC.

Her ministry has been instrumental in shaping who I am. Her particular sense of humor, her tireless efforts for the justice and dignity of the most vulnerable among us, and her enthusiastic acceptance of all people and all faiths has influenced more people than I’m sure she could ever imagine. She is far too humble to think of herself as a tide changer, but those of us who know her know the truth – she is a light, a warrior of love, and a beacon for those who love the church and those who have been mistreated by it. She is dearly loved and deeply admired for her perspective, her compassion, and her faith, and while I know she has many more years of world-changing in her, she’ll be doing it from a different venue now.

In honor of this incredible transition, today I’m sharing a poem she wrote about Christmas. In addition to her work in ministry, she’s the author of more than twenty books and spent a year as a poet laureate, in addition to having taught writing for several decades. For me, there is no better way to ring in this holiday weekend than by considering her words and the overwhelming love she has for this difficult, hard to love world.

Improv on Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch who Stole Christmas, Maren C. Tirabassi
The grinch on the inside of Who you and Who me
who shrinks from the carols and ducks under the tree …

The grinch who fears weight gain and avoids every store,
with chestnut-roast muzak and wreaths on the door …

The grinch who dreads greedies and commercials for toys,
and deplores the way sadness is wrapped in fake joy …

This grinch has a heart that is just the right size,
but it hurts so at Christmas that it is no surprise …

That with all of the darkness, the hurry, the haste,
with all of the “must-do’s,” the parties and waste …

The grinch on the inside of you-grouch and me-beast,
the grinch who hates candlelight service and feast …

The grinch who is lonely, and feels like a stranger,
the grinch who’s disgusted when I rhyme with “manger” …

Finds that all of the stories of this Christmas season,
the Scrooges and Nutcrackers point to one reason.

It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, Fred Claus,
and the Polar Express are all written because –

There’s a mystery here, there’s a wonder, a glow,
that comes not from a package or starlight on snow …

That is not about family with its comfort or grief,
and is not about having some perfect belief …

It’s all about God, who won’t come the right way.
who jumps out of the church, as well as the sleigh …

God who needs diapers but takes myrrh in a pinch –
this God who sends babies is in love with each Grinch.

Reciprocity, John Drinkwater

I hate when my busiest working season falls in the summer. It’s always interrupted by travel and bbqs and outings, and I end up half distracted while at my computer, and half worried while I’m out trying to enjoy myself. This year has been especially challenging with two major projects in high gear since the beginning of June, all of our family commitments long flights away, and a seemingly endless parade of distractions that keep me from focusing.

I suspect I could make good use of blinders right about now, but since single-mindedness eludes me, I’m doing  my best to multitask through the madness. That means, yes, I’m reading, but it’s slow. I get maybe a chapter a day if I’m lucky, and that doesn’t jive well with my reviewing schedule.

On the plus side, it does mean I get to share some of my favorite poems. This one has become almost a mantra for me in the last month. I read it once or twice a day and then spend maybe thirty seconds admiring the leaves rustling out the window. It doesn’t sound like much, but it serves to ground me, and to remind me of the fullness of life, even during one of its stressful seasons.

Reciprocity, John Drinkwater
I do not think that skies and meadows are
Moral, or that the fixture of a star
Comes of a quiet spirit, or that trees
Have wisdom in their windless silences.
Yet these are things invested in my mood
With constancy, and peace, and fortitude,
That in my troubled season I can cry
Upon the wide composure of the sky,
And envy fields, and wish that I might be
As little daunted as a star or tree.

Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson

My theme this spring has apparently been “start great books I don’t have time to finish,” and Brown Girl Dreaming is no exception. This was a gift from my mother-in-law at Christmas, and although I started it over a month ago, it’s too beautiful to rush through. This hardcover has come with me for a much needed haircut, in the stroller to the park, and out to the grill when I was supposed to be keeping an eye on the food, and that’s saying something since I’m much more accustomed to making use of the Kindle app on my phone.

Written in free verse, Woodson’s perfectly paced memoir is exquisite. Having put together my own memoir in verse a few years ago, I recognize how difficult it is to make every piece as strong as the previous one, and she puts my meager efforts to shame. How she does it – I can only imagine how much work went into telling this story. How she must have agonized and organized and overwritten in order to eventually prune down to this one exceptional volume.

When it comes to books like this, it’s hard not to get lost in considering the craft behind it. In some cases, peering behind the curtain might mean a book is lacking in some way – the reader is distracted by all the bells and whistles – but in this case, it’s more like examining a butterfly’s wings. The detail makes the experience richer. Woodson’s technique is fascinating, and I want to both bathe in it and somehow make it my own.

Her experiences growing up both in the north and the south also give her a unique perspective on the racial tension that was exploding across the country then, and which we still feel the effects of today. I only hope this book makes it onto reading lists in schools every year, because when I was a child, I had the privilege of thinking this discussion was only a part of history, when my friends and classmates knew differently, from experience.

Woodson writes her truth in a way that is accessible and beautiful. Her story is one children can both enjoy and understand from a young age. For an older audience, it’s a wonderful jumping off point for challenging conversations about discrimination in this country while encouraging hope and love as the bedrock on the path to justice.

South Carolina at War

Because we have a right, my grandfather tells us-
we are sitting at his feet and the story tonight is

why people are marching all over the South-

to walk and sit and dream wherever we want.

First they brought us here.
Then we worked for free. Then it was 1863,
and we were supposed to be free but we weren’t.

And that’s why people are so mad.

And it’s true, we can’t turn on the radio
without hearing about the marching.

We can’t go to downtown Greenville without
seeing the teenagers walking into stores, sitting
where brown people still aren’t allowed to sit
and getting carried out, their bodies limp,
their faces calm.

This is the way brown people have to fight,
my grandfather says.
You can’t just put your fist up. You have to insist
on something
gently. Walk toward a thing
slowly.

But be ready to die,
my grandfather says,
for what is right.

And none of us can imagine death
but we try to imagine it anyway.

Even my mother joins the fight.
When she thinks our grandmother
isn’t watching she sneaks out
to meet the cousins downtown, but just as
she’s stepping through the door,
her good dress and gloves on, my grandmother says,
Now don’t go getting arrested.

And Mama sounds like a little girl when she says,
I won’t.

More than a hundred years, my grandfather says,
and we’re still fighting for the free life
we’re supposed to be living.

So there’s a war going on in South Carolina
and even as we play
and plant and preach and sleep, we are a part of it.

Because you’re colored, my grandfather says.
And just as good and bright and beautiful and free
as anybody.
And nobody colored in the South is stopping,
my grandfather says,
until everybody knows what’s true.

The Happiest Day, Linda Pastan

The last two weeks have been so crazy, I didn’t even realize it was Thursday until about an hour ago. I was patting myself on the back for starting a book for next week’s post when I realized that next week was already here…

So this one goes out to everyone who walks around chin up when the balance of life is perfect, and has nightmares and dishes overflowing the sink and tiny legos stuck to the bottom of their feet when it’s not. Because we’re all just doing our best, right? We’re savoring the happy where we can while missing it more often than we want to admit.

The Happiest Day
It was early May, I think
a moment of lilac or dogwood
when so many promises are made
it hardly matters if a few are broken.
My mother and father still hovered
in the background, part of the scenery
like the houses I had grown up in,
and if they would be torn down later
that was something I knew
but didn’t believe. Our children were asleep
or playing, the youngest as new
as the new smell of the lilacs,
and how could I have guessed
their roots were shallow
and would be easily transplanted.
I didn’t even guess that I was happy.
The small irritations that are like salt
on melon were what I dwelt on,
though in truth they simply
made the fruit taste sweeter.
So we sat on the porch
in the cool morning, sipping
hot coffee. Behind the news of the day–
strikes and small wars, a fire somewhere–
I could see the top of your dark head
and thought not of public conflagrations
but of how it would feel on my bare shoulder.
If someone could stop the camera then…
if someone could only stop the camera
and ask me: are you happy?
perhaps I would have noticed
how the morning shone in the reflected
color of lilac. Yes, I might have said
and offered a steaming cup of coffee.

This week, my better half is on the other side of the world for work, and my mother has come to keep us company. That hasn’t left much time for reading, but it did remind me of this poem. I’ve loved it for years, but I understand it now in a way I never imagined. It just burns at my heart.

To a daughter leaving home, Linda Pastan

When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.

 

(I’ll be back in two weeks with a proper review, but for now, time must be spent with a few of my favorite people.)

Marriage, Michael Blumenthal

A brief post, as this week, our family is traveling to celebrate an important birthday with my wonderful mother. She does so much for our entire family, and it’s a blessing to be with her right now.

This poem, which I’ve loved for years, speaks to me not just about my own marriage, but also that of my parents, who have spent so many years teaching me about the importance of shared burdens and teamwork. I’m lucky they’ve always been honest about both the joy and hard work required in a relationship, and that they have not only discussed it, but also led by example.

Marriage
You are holding up a ceiling
with both arms. It is very heavy,
but you must hold it up, or else
it will fall down on you. Your arms
are tired, terribly tired,
and, as the day goes on, it feels
as if either your arms or the ceiling
will soon collapse.

But then,
unexpectedly,
something wonderful happens:
Someone,
a man or a woman,
walks into the room
and holds their arms up
to the ceiling beside you.

So you finally get
to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
the blood flowing back
to your fingers and arms.
And when your partner’s arms tire,
you hold up your own
to relieve him again.

And it can go on like this
for many years
without the house falling.

What is Death, Henry Scott Holland

What is Death

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference in your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without affect,
without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolutely unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just around the corner.

All is well.

 

I’ve been thinking about this poem a lot the last couple of weeks. When I was at church the Sunday before Lent began, we were celebrating, as our congregation always does, with a wonderful brass band. It’s made up of some exceptionally talented members of our community, and when they play for us (typically on that Sunday and on Easter), it energizes everyone. For an hour, it felt like Mardi Gras had truly descended on us. The only downside to this particular service is that every year at its conclusion, we sing a hymn called “Glory Glory (Since I Laid My Burdens Down).” It’s one of my favorites, and it also happens to be a song that I asked to have included in my grandmother’s memorial service a few years ago.

My grandmother and I were very close. We spent a lot of time together, just the two of us, especially until I was about ten, and even after I moved three thousand miles away in my twenties, I tried to come back and visit her four or five times a year. As she got frailer in her nineties, I still enjoyed going out to sit by the river with her, or to get an ice cream because she managed to keep her good humor and sharp wits about her nearly to the end. I’m sure her body often hurt, that she was frustrated when she couldn’t speak as quickly as she wanted or dig into a ham sandwich on rye with the vigor she’d had even at eighty-five, but she never complained to me. She was practically blind by then (a particular sorrow for a woman who dearly loved to read), but she would sit and hold my hand, enjoying the sunshine and listening with eagle ears to the busy world around us.

After she was gone, I realized that many of my earliest memories were of her. She taught me to read and write in cursive long before those activities might have interested me in school. She had such beautiful handwriting, and she would write me little stories so I could practice deciphering the text and rewriting it myself. When we ate lunch together, she would pull out two pretty aluminum tv trays and set them up in front of the bay window in her apartment; I would spread out the special embroidered place mats and together we would make peanut butter sandwiches cut twice to form four triangles. As we ate, we would sit and watch the commuter trains go by and she would listen quietly while I talked (and talked and talked).

As the second child, I especially appreciated and craved the kind of dedicated love and respect she gave to me. She never expected anything of me other than to exhibit a joy for learning new things; she saw the world as an adventure waiting to unfold, and she wanted me to see and believe that too. In return, I never questioned the old-fashioned nature of our favorite past times – stringing wooden beads, or playing Authors, or learning to read aloud sentences from the worn books in her old wooden chest. She would crawl under tables with me to play pirates and into bushes that had holes just the right size for the two of us. My faith in her as a playmate and confidante was absolute.

I think of her often, but never more so than when I hear that particular song – a spiritual written about finding, finally, a release from trouble and pain. It’s a joyful song, especially when played with unbridled enthusiasm by a brass band and sung by 250 people, but it never fails to make me cry by the third verse (I feel better, so much better, since I laid my burdens down). I don’t like to cry in public, so I usually end up mouthing the lyrics through to the end while trying to pretend that everything is completely fine. It’s probably a futile exercise, but I persist because the wave of sadness it brings reminds me of Holland’s simple verses – that the pain of loss should not taint the joy of who a person was in life.

There is Pleasure in the Pathless Woods, George Gordon Byron

I’m on vacation this week, and this is the piece I’ve been meditating on as we hike and swim and rest our busy minds at the end of this, the darkest month of the year.

 

There is Pleasure in the Pathless Woods

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

The Moment, Marie Howe

Happy New Year! Tomorrow I have to drive eight hours, then fly six to get home, so I’m going to enjoy this last day of vacation to its fullest. I hope you’re able to do the same.

 

The Moment

Oh, the coming out-of-nowhere moment
when,   nothing
happens
no what-have-I-to-do-today-list

maybe   half a moment
the rush of traffic stops.
The whir of I should be, I should be, I should be
slows to silence,
the white cotton curtains hanging still.

Keeping Christmas, Henry Van Dyke

Whether you celebrate this holiday…Whether you spend it working, or alone, with new friends or difficult family…Whether you have enough to eat, whether there are toys or trees, joy or disappointment…Whether you dread the traffic, the budgeting, the small talk…Whether you explode down the stairs in joyful anticipation…

…there is a book for you. In your stocking, at the library, online…somewhere, there is a book written just for you. No. There are a thousand books written just for you, with a hundred more written every year. Whatever you lack, whatever you wish for, whatever problems you can’t solve, there is a book, waiting.

And if Christmas is anything, it is the finding, the loving, the learning, and the letting go of all those beautiful books meant for you. You will find your stories of wonder, of searching, of tragedy and redemption.You will find your heroes, and you will be them. You will find your villains, and you may be them too. You will never be too far gone to find your way back to your books though, because they will offer endlessly forgiveness, and strength, and hope.

We are all welcome beloved seekers of the next great story.

 

Keeping Christmas

There is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day,
and that is, keeping Christmas.

Are you willing…
to forget what you have done for other people,
and to remember what other people have done for you;

to ignore what the world owes you,
and to think what you owe the world;

to put your rights in the background,
and your duties in the middle distance,
and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground;

to see that men and women are just as real as you are,
and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy;

to own up to the fact that probably the only good reason
for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life,
but what you are going to give to life;

to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe,
and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds
of happiness—

Are you willing to do these things even for a day?
Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing to stoop down and consider
the needs and desires of little children;

to remember the weakness and loneliness of people growing old;

to stop asking how much your friends love you,
and ask yourself whether you love them enough;

to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear in their hearts;

to try to understand what those who live in the same home with you
really want, without waiting for them to tell you;

to make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings
with the gate open—

Are you willing to do these things, even for a day?
Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world—
stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death—
and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago
is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love?

Then you can keep Christmas.