HOLIDAYS by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

 Holidays

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The holiest of all holidays are those
    Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
    The secret anniversaries of the heart,
    When the full river of feeling overflows;—
The happy days unclouded to their close;
    The sudden joys that out of darkness start
    As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart
    Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!
White as the gleam of a receding sail,
    White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,
    White as the whitest lily on a stream,
These tender memories are;— a Fairy Tale
    Of some enchanted land we know not where,
    But lovely as a landscape in a dream.

This is a beautiful poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He talks about the special memories we have that are so precious to us and have become the "holiest of holidays". We keep these memories "in silence and apart." They live in our hearts as "secret anniversaries". This is so true for me. My life and those of my 2 daughters have not gone as we had envisaged many years ago, but I have many special memories tucked away.

Wadsworth describes these "secret anniversaries" as white but ephemeral- bright flashes of light, but short-lived. They "recede", they "fade" or they pass by quickly as if floating "on a stream".

"White as a gleam of a receding sail,

White as a cloud that floats and fades in air, 

White as the whitest lily on a stream."

They remain pure, "the happy days unclouded to their close" but all these "tender memories" are like a "Fairy Tale". We can't grab onto them again. We can't make them real or concrete. But they remain "lovely as a landscape in a dream," tucked away in the "darkness" but ready to "dart" into our consciousness "like swallows".

It is important to keep making special memories as long as we live.


 

God Became A Man

God became a man and got his hands dirty. The incarnation compels us to do the same, through his life at work in ours. He is Immanuel, God with us, and also he is Immanuel, God in us at work through us for his glory, others’ good, and our gladness.

Mark Driscoll

A STRANGE DICHOTOMY

I love the run up to Christmas - all the craft and Christmas decorations. But I often think of what a strange festival it is -originally pagan, appropriated for Christianity, and now largely secular. I came across a strange picture of a Santa bowing at the manger. I enjoy all the glitz and fantasy but separate this from my Christian beliefs. I wish there were two separate days - one specifically for the Birth of Christ and one for Santa coming. A  friend of mine, whose husband is Dutch says this is a tradition where he comes from. His family gave presents earlier in December and then the 25th of December was a religious occasion.

I guess in the end Christmas is what each of us wishes to make of it and take from it.

Looking towards Point Perpendicular, Jervis Bay

Show me how to always speak the right words to bring peace to a situation or a relationship. I pray for peace to reign in all my relationships.

Stormie O'Martian

A NEW BEGINNING

 I began this blog a couple of years ago. I didn't post much. I am going to start writing it again. I am going to use it for thoughts and a lots of the positive bits and pieces I read along the way. I love quotes and sayings. I have decided I would like to keep some of these is a more organised way and I decided I may as well share them in case anyone else finds them useful.This is mainly a record for myself.

WARNING. This will contain Christian Material.

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St Luke's Anglican Church, Brownsville, NSW, Australia.

Dear Lord, I am grateful that You will do more in my life than I can even imagine.

Stormie O'Martian

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DOGS ARE ANGELS

These are just some general, self indulgent ramblings about dogs. I seem to have a renewed love for dogs after looking after Jasper and I seemed to keep coming across things about dogs on the internet. I decided to share my thoughts.

I love dogs. Especially small dogs. Little terriers to be precise. Some dogs are working dogs but most dogs do nothing more for us that just love us. They love us unconditionally. I think they are a gift from God.

I have a grand-dog Jasper. He is a little Miniature Foxie. I have just finished looking after him for a month while my daughter and her husband were away. He was great company.

I didn't like dogs when I was younger. I was frightened of them for a long time. When I was 23 a stray dog came to our house and my husband and I took it in and looked after it . That was Sandy and she lived for 15 years. She was some sort of little terrier cross. A very untidy little dog.

After that I loved dogs. Big ones I don't know still scare me a bit, but now I wonder how  haven't always loved them.

Our last dog was Tiny, another terrier cross. He came from the RSPCA. He was 6 months old when he came to us - still a baby. He had a heart murmur but lived until he was 12.

Dogs as therapy

 Petting, scratching and cuddling a dog
could be as soothing to the mind and heart
as deep meditation
and almost as good for the soul as prayer.
~ Dean Koontz ~

Delta Society Australia is a national not-for-profit organisation with one core belief: that the human-animal bond remarkably improves our quality of life and leaves a lasting paw print on our hearts.
According to Delta Society Australia there is a special and indescribable kinship shared between dogs and people of all ages. Attention from a dog can brighten your day, make you feel loved and, as has been scientifically proven, improve your overall health and well-being.

Below are 2 videos about rescued dogs that are up lifting.

http://www.godvine.com/Dog-Stranded-on-a-Busy-Highway-fb-gv-3882.html


This is a bit of a strange quote below. It comes from Matthew 25:40 where Jesus was referring to children. I'm not sure that he meant it to apply to dogs, but I really feel that looking after hurt animals, especially dogs, is a good and noble thing.

http://www.godvine.com/Neglected-Dog-fb-gv-3983.html 

Loving a dog adds to the richness of life.

 

GOD'S PLAN AND MY PART IN IT

Yea!! I have just finished reading the book of Ezekiel. I am working my way through the Bible. It is taking me a long time but I am learning an awful lot about how all those Sunday School stories fit together. I am reading The Message version of the Bible which is very modern and up to date.

The last part of Ezekiel was hard going. It is very detailed descriptions God's new temple to come. The Lion Handbook To The Bible states that we need to read Ezekiel to be able to understand Revelation. So that will be interesting when I reach Revelation, the final book of the Bible.


My reading today tends to be about trusting God with His plan for us.

In Today's Faithful Daily Read Geoff Thompson writes:

Trust God that he has you in his master plan. What might the master narrator write about the seemingly incidental detail in your day today? Watch for the hand of God and the work of the Spirit as you go.
http://faithfuldailyread.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/bakers-delight/

Geoff  Thompson

I wrote a reply today to the Faithful Daily Read. As follows:

Trusting that God ‘has you in his master plan’ is exciting and takes the fear out of living. I can see ‘the hand of God in my life’. While some things may not seem fair at the time I remember Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.

9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Sometimes it is hard to see the hand of God when difficult things are happening but then something marvelous will happen that I hadn’t envisioned.

And I always try to remember ‘that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’ (Romans 8:20 NIV)

Who knows what today will bring. Maybe I will ‘enter and enjoy the good of the land.’ Maybe God will call me home like Stephen. Or maybe it will just be another day filled with the similar ‘seemingly incidental detail’ of most days.
Whatever God has in mind it is good to know I have eternal life and that I am part of God’s master plan.

But I am also aware that we play our own  part in our lives. 

'Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously' (2 Corinthians. 9:6)

I don't believe in  karma in the sense we often use it. My husband left me for his secretary some years ago and I was devastated. People tell me that what goes around comes around, and that life will give him his  comeuppance (which by the way I do not want for him. I want him to be happy even though he hurt me very deeply and has affected my life considerably)

I don't think I did anything terribly bad to lead me where I am now, and I don't intend this to be a list of what is wrong with my life. I have done my best in life and if karma was real I wouldn't be where I am now. 

But I still believe it is important to sow good works. Eventually I will reap the harvest. I must be patient.

So in putting it all together I know that God has a plan for my life. I don't always understand it but I know that I must play my part along the way and do the best I can to love God and those around me, and help those who need it. In the end I will be a winner.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

I have just been looking after my daughter's dog for 4 weeks. His name is Jasper and he is my little sweet heart.

He is a very loving and trusting little dog. And strange as it may be he makes me think of all little animals and whether I should be eating them or not.

I am not a vegetarian but I do eat a mainly plant based diet for health reasons. After reading The China Study  by T Colin Campbell and Thomas M Campbell I was convinced that a plant based diet is definitely more healthy.

 I used to think that it was meat that had made humans more intelligent but now it is generally accepted that it was beginning to eat cooked food. So many more nutrients could be consumed in a smaller time. (http://www.businessinsider.com.au/human-evolution-cooking-food-2012-10 ,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8543906.stm )

Meat is not necessary to survive. My daughter is a vegan and has survived very well on a vegan diet for the last 16 years.

Veganism or vegetarianism has nothing to do with Biblical teaching although Seventh Day Adventists are vegetarian. This was introduced as an emphasis on wholeness and health by the Seventh Day Adventist Church in the 1860's, rather than as a result of strict biblical teaching. And studies do show that Seventh Day Adventists do live longer than their meat eating counterparts. (http://news.adventist.org/en/archive/articles/2013/06/04/u.s.-study-of-adventists-finds-vegetarians-live-longer)

In fact after the flood God gave Noah permission to eat animals. (Genesis 9:1-5)

When  I eat lamb or veal I am eating a baby animal.  A little creature just like Jasper.

 If I had to see that animal slaughtered would I want to eat it? That is questionable. I like all my meat wrapped up in plastic bearing no resemblance to the original live animal.

This video,  Their Future in Your Hands is really interesting.

Their Future in Your Hands

 http://vimeo.com/groups/166612/videos/41915532

So basically I am still undecided. If I had a partner who was vegetarian then it I would become vegetarian immediately. This may seem like I cop out.

I don't know, but just loving a little animal, like Jasper, has certainly given me food for thought.