Hello everybody! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, full of Christmas Spirit. And some of you more discerning humans may wonder what I mean by that, because apparently, there is no universal definition for the phrase ‘Christmas Spirit.’ But I think there should be, because there was a whole lot of Christmas Spirit going on in the little Devon village where I live.
It all began with a tragedy. A lady who was one of the leading ‘human characters’ in the village, suddenly collapsed and died a few days before Christmas. She was just 68 and had suffered a brain haemorrhage. Her poor husband was left reeling. They had no children and very few living relatives, so he was left very much on his own. Other humans in the village came to realise this. All too often, humans choose to stay away from someone that’s freshly grieving because they don’t know what to say or do. But that wasn’t the case in our village. No, in fact, different humans queued up to help. They helped by keeping the grieving husband company. They helped by sorting out all of the paperwork that needed to be done. They offered to cook meals. And they made sure that the poor man had somewhere to go on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day so that he wouldn’t be alone. The villagers couldn’t change what had happened, but they did everything in their power to help. And I think they did so because they realised that Christmas isn’t all about the human tradition of receiving loads of presents; no, -instead these humans opened up their hearts to give something back. And whether they knew it or not, they did so because they had the ‘Spirit of Christmas’ inside them. The real ‘Spirit of Christmas’ is the spirit of God and Jesus, -or if you prefer, -the ultimate Spirit of Love. It’s simple really. Because whenever we give to others, we’re allowing the Spirit of God and Jesus to come and work through us. And that’s irrespective of whether we have any kind of faith or go to church. Yes, the love of God and Jesus is the beating heart of Christmas, so our challenge for the coming year is to keep ‘The Spirit of Christmas’ alive inside us! God Bless you all, and don’t worry if you have an off day. They even happen to the best of parrots!
“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 beside ourselves.”
(Eric Sevareid: [1912-1992]: American author and C.B.S. news journalist)
“A Christmas candle is a lovely thing; it makes no noise at all, but softly gives itself away.”
(Evelyn Underhill: [1875-1941]: English Anglo-Catholic, religious writer, pacifist, poet and author)
“The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each other’s burdens, and supplanting empty hearts with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas.” (William Carey Jones: [1855-1927]: Former American Attorney General of Washington)
“The true spirit of Christmas is love.”
(Linda Willis: 1949-present]: A very close witness when President Kennedy was assassinated)
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
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