The season of Christmas Light is upon us. The abundance of colored, flashing and glittering lights serve as a good reminder to check on the light within us. The Yuletide frenzy of carrying out familiar and comforting traditions can obscure the call to nurture the inner light entrusted to us by the Creator. So in all the joy and celebration I wish everyone to find in this and every season, I wish for you also to remember the still, small voice speaking within. The call for justice, mercy, and compassion and the love of neighbor and of enemy are the messages of Jesus. And that is a message worth celebrating.
I wish you Joy,
Charlie
The last 3 stanzas from John Greenleaf Whittier's poem "The Mystic's Christmas"
"I listen, from no mortal tongue,
To hear the song the angels sung;
And wait within myself to know
The Christmas lilies bud and blow.
"The outward symbols disappear
From him whose inward sight is clear;
And small must be the choice of days
To Him who fills them all with praise!
"Keep while you need it, brothers mine,
With honest seal your Christmas sign,
But judge not him who every morn
Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born!"
John Greenleaf Whittier was born in 1807 the son of two devout Quakers. He grew up on the farm and had little formal schooling. He was a Quaker devoted to social causes and reform. Whittier worked passionately for a series of abolitionist newspapers and magazines.