RON HENGGELER

December 21, 2018
My Christmas Contemplations

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

(From A TALE OF TWO CITIES by Charles Dickens)

When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.

Buddha

 

It is the Christmas time:
And up and down 'twixt heaven and earth,
In glorious grief and solemn mirth,
The shining angels climb.

Dinah Maria Mulock

Everything you can imagine is real.

Pablo Picasso

 

'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale;
'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man's heart through half the year.

Walter Scott

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

Charles Dickens

 

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas;
Soon the bells will start,
And the thing that will make them ring
Is the carol that you sing
Right within your heart.

Meredith Willson

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

 

 

The universal joy of Christmas is certainly wonderful. We ring the bells when princes are born, or toll a mournful dirge when great men pass away. Nations have their red-letter days, their carnivals and festivals, but once in the year and only once, the whole world stands still to celebrate the advent of a life. 

Author Unknown

Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.

Winston Churchill

My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?
Bob Hope

 

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. 

Calvin Coolidge

 

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.

Joseph Campbell

Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.

Author unknown

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean. 

Socrates

No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.

Euripides

 

Wouldn't life be worth the living
Wouldn't dreams be coming true
If we kept the Christmas spirit
All the whole year through?

Author Unknown

We ring the bells and we raise the strain
We hang up garlands everywhere
And bid the tapers twinkle fair,
And feast and frolic — and then we go
Back to the same old lives again.

Susan Coolidge

Good news from heaven the angels bring,
Glad tidings to the earth they sing:
To us this day a child is given,
To crown us with the joy of heaven.

Martin Luther

The earth has grown old with its burden of care,
But at Christmas it always is young . . .

Phillips Brooks

Christmas! ‘Tis the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.

Washington Irving

 

When you're in love with a city, you grope for shadows that vanish at first touch.

Herb Caen

 

Let us have music for Christmas …
Sound the trumpet of joy and rebirth;
Let each of us try, with a song in our hearts,
To bring peace to men on earth.

Mildred L. Jarrell

Christmas gift suggestions: to your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.

Oren Arnold

Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.

Joseph Campbell

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. 

Charles Dickens

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

Henry David Thoreau

Sing hey! Sing hey!
For Christmas Day;
Twine mistletoe and holly.
For a friendship glows
In winter snows,
And so let's all be jolly!

Author Unknown

 

Christmas will always be as long as we stand heart to heart and hand in hand.

Dr. Seuss

 

Christmas in Bethlehem. The ancient dream: a cold, clear night made brilliant by a glorious star, the smell of incense, shepherds and wise men falling to their knees in adoration of the sweet baby, the incarnation of perfect love. 

Lucinda Franks

Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart…filled it, too, with melody that would last forever.

Bess Streeter Aldrich

 Song of Years

 

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!

Charles Dickens

 The Pickwick Papers

 

Fine old Christmas, with the snowy hair and ruddy face, had done his duty that year in the noblest fashion, and had set off his rich gifts of warmth and color with all the heightening contrast of frost and snow.

George Eliot

The Mill on the Floss

 

 

Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves.

Eric Sevareid

 

May Peace be your gift at Christmas and your blessing all year through!

Author Unknown

Until one feels the spirit of Christmas, there is no Christmas. All else is outward display–so much tinsel and decorations. For it isn’t the holly, it isn’t the snow. It isn’t the tree not the firelight’s glow. It’s the warmth that comes to the hearts of men when the Christmas spirit returns again.

Unknown

 

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.

Euripides

 

The merry family gatherings–
The old, the very young;
The strangely lovely way they
Harmonize in carols sung.

For Christmas is tradition time–
Traditions that recall
The precious memories down the years,
The sameness of them all.

Helen Lowrie Marshall

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

Albert Einstein

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Henry David Thoreau

Christmas is forever, not for just one day,
for loving, sharing, giving, are not to put away
like bells and lights and tinsel, in some box upon a shelf.
The good you do for others is good you do yourself . . .

Norman Wesley Brooks

Let Every Day Be Christmas

 

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Christmas — that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance — a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved. 

Augusta E. Rundel

I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply ALL my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy.

Og Mandino

 

At Christmas-tide the open hand
Scatters its bounty o'er sea and land,
And none are left to grieve alone,
For Love is heaven and claims its own.

Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters.

Amit Ray

 

 

At Christmas, all roads lead home. 

Marjorie Holmes

God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.

Joseph Campbell

There is a Christmas song upon the air,
There is a joy innate within the heart;
An inner sense of peace, a holy light
Illumines life and sets these days apart.

Edna Greene Hines

Each sight, each sound of Christmas
And fragrances sublime
Make hearts and faces happy
This glorious Christmastime.

Carice Williams

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

Dr Seuss

A cup of ale,
A merry tale
Of days of olden time,
And Christmas good cheer
To wind up the year
With glad frolic, and fun, and glee.

Henry James Slack

Winter's Song, The Ministry of the Beautiful

Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.

Larry Wilde

The Merry Book of Christmas

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.

Agnes M. Pharo

 

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, make the Yuletide gay.

Ralph Blane

 

And, so, Christmas comes to bless us!
Comes to teach us how to find
The joy of giving happiness
And the joy of being kind.

Gertrude Tooley Buckingham

There Will Always Be a Christmas

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

Henry David Thoreau

I can understand people simply fleeing the mountainous effort Christmas has become... but there are always a few saving graces and finally they make up for all the bother and distress. 

May Sarton

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. 

Norman Vincent Peale

One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that.

Joseph Campbell

 

Christmas – that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance – a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.

Augusta E. Rundel

Be merry all, be merry all,
With holly dress the festive hall;
Prepare the song, the feast, the ball,
To welcome merry Christmas.


William Robert Spencer

I live and love in God's peculiar light.

Michelangelo

A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;
It makes no noise at all,
But softly gives itself away.

Eva Logue

To the one who knows how to look and feel, every moment of this free wandering life is an enchantment.

Alexandra David Neel

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

 

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