|
Hood River News Editorial
December 23, 2006
It is a good thing to observe Christmas
Day, author Mary N. Hawkes writes in a preface to the brief essay
“Keeping Christmas” by Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933), the American author
and clergyman.
As Hawkes puts it in her book “Stories, Poems and Sons for the
Festivals of Christmas,” Van Dyke believed that marking times and
seasons to stop work and enjoy oneself is both wise and wholesome,
“because we are reminded that the life we share with others and with
nature’s calendar are important.”
Here, from the Hood River News this Christmas, to help mark the
occasion, is the heart of Van Dyke’s essay:
*****
“But 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 (others) are just as real as you are, and to try to look behind
their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy; to own 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 the 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 those things even for a day? Then you can keep
Christmas.
“Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and the desires
of little children; to remember the weakness and loneliness of people
who are 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 on their hearts; to try to understand
what those who live in the same house with you really want, without
waiting for them to tell you; to trim your lamp so that it will give
more light and less smoke; and to carry it in front so that your
shadow will fall behind 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
...
“And if you keep it for a day, why not always?
“But you can never keep it alone.”
— The United Church Press, 1983 |
