[Oe List ...] Christmas Greeting

[Marianna Bailey]

Dear Colleagues,

The following Christmas Greeting is one that I have saved from our early days in the order. I do not remember how it was used but through the years it has continued to be a part of my meditative council. We send it to you this year as our Christmas card and best wishes for a Happy New Year.

Marianna and Bill Bailey


A Christmas Greeting

There is nothing I can give you
	which you have not;
But there is much, very much that
	while I can not 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 instant. Take peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow
	Behind it, yet within reach, is joy.
There is a 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
	their 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 and you 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 livening gifts.

And so 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.

			A Christmas card by
	 				 Fra Giovanni, 1513 A. D.

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