'From a distance the world looks blue and green and the snow-capped mountains white
From a distance the ocean meets the stream and the eagle takes to flight
From a distance there is harmony and it echoes through the land
It's the voice of hope,
It's the voice of peace
It's the voice of every man. … '

In spite of all the pain and loss I've known, I really have had a wonderful life.
The past can give such comfort and ease the weary soul.
When I look back on my life there is nothing more soothing than to recall family and friends and the wonder that is Christmas. It's my favourite time of the year.
Christmastime when I was young held much magic and such wonder but colors dulled while candles dimmed the way I'm standing under. I wish I could go back.
I wish I was still that small boy sitting with my brother and sister on a moon-filled Christmas Eve looking for Santa. We three kings believed.
I wish I could see the world now as I saw it then.
When it seems the magic has slipped away, I find it all again on Christmas Day.
Christmas is a state of mind.
To believe in what the heart is saying while the melody is playing. There is no time to waste. To believe in what you feel inside will give yourself the wings to fly.
Friends and family home again remembering the days back when. Faces glow with innocence, that’s what Christmas means.
Christmas is not a date it is a message.
We are not alone.
When I look about this ocean of humanity I see I never was alone.
There is a Spirit of Christmas. You can tell by the looks on people's faces at Christmastime that they feel it too. So many different people and different races caught for a moment, regardless of why.
Even if only for a second, you can catch that Spirit in the air.
All around, you can tell when it is here.
There's something about this time of year that makes you wish it was Christmas every day. You can see it in the malls and out on the street. People laughing as they pass, their arms filled with Christmas presence. Christmas, in its final essence, is for grown people who have forgotten what children already know. He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.
We must take each moment and live each moment.
When we do it will grow and spread like a chill, then dance hot as if we set to flame
some spark of peace and goodwill towards men. It will be everywhere; a day on which we think of everything we have loved and all we remember. We are haunted by the ghosts of Christmas. Sometimes it is hard to find a reason for the season.
Whether resulting from the loss of an important person in the past year, an anniversary of loss or traumatic event, many find themselves alone with dampened spirits. Sadness and depression are not unique to Christmastime, but both tend to come in stronger waves of blue, layered with emptiness and melancholy. Any cheer is lost beneath the inescapable reality of longing, hurt and fear.
We cannot find our way. We cannot find our way at all. All the different voices and all the different choices, we cannot find our way at all.
The world is changing and rearranging and that means Christmas changes too.
Around the world you cannot find a silent night. The Christmas tree it doesn't burn as bright. Outside are sounds of carolling but I can't hear those voices sing anything but sadness in the song. There is no doubt that something has gone wrong. A different kind of Christmas makes a very different world. You may think it looks the same but everything has changed. Changed forever without even consulting you.
Hidden away in the manger.
The holiday season has become a celebration of external pleasure and spiritual gratification, and the real purpose of Christmas has faded into the background. It is as if we have coloured over original artwork with finger paints so that a mere glimpse of truth is barely visible on the canvas. We feel Christmas and we see Christmas, but we do not know Christmas. Let us not make Christmas a thing. Let it thrive as spirit in memory not possession of hand. Just get me through December so I can start again.
I’ve been trying for so long to survive God when I should have been worrying more about man and his ways. Though all is clear, we do not see and although we hear, we do not understand. The stories of Christmas dim in this same light.
Christmas has become mere entertainment value. An anthropomorphic expression created so that mankind can think they understand messages from God.
We replace one message with another and get stuck in our belief structure.
We have focus on the secular and the sacred and have forgotten the substance.
After all, Jesus was not the first, nor the last Holy child in our history. From Moses to Osiris to Mohammed, mankind has been visited often by the Divine and His host.
When things get lost in translation, we shoot the messenger.
Each of us can be wise.
If we release our hearts while opening our eyes.
We can each know everything without ever knowing why. We cannot know because we aren’t supposed to know. It is faith that defines our relationship with God and faith that leads us back to the first Christmas and Jesus, in swaddling cloth, away in that manger.
The message may be wrapped in fable or it may have occurred just as reported, but these specifics matter only to the hubris of man.
We need to relate to something in order to understand it clearly.
There is not one iota of evidence which can demonstrate these things occurred but they give us something to believe in.

'From a distance we all have enough and no one is in need
There are no guns, no bombs, and no disease, no hungry mouths to feed
From a distance we are instruments marching in a common band
Playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace
They're the songs of every man … '

After December 1st, it is hard to escape the onslaught of Christmas sentiments wrapped up in processed signals and stereo sound. There is something magical about Christmas programming. Every year, it’s like opening a box of wonder whenever the season comes round again. The films, music and classic shows I cherish so, capture the primal need in me for renewal and hope.
They will always be a part of each Christmas for me.
It is almost as if, somewhere within, these things release a spirit which has fallen asleep throughout the rest of the year. They fill the heart with memories and the Spirit of this season bringing tidings of comfort and joy. All those silly songs, TV shows and stupid Christmas movies have a power over me and have a power within them.
Some attack the message despite the Source.
We search so hard for any evil that might keep us from heaven that we forget God speaks to us through the things we know.
You always find what you’re looking for if you think it is there.
If God can move us through scripture, then is it so hard to imagine that He dwells within anything that speaks to the character and substance of His love for us? If something imparts tidings of comfort and joy, if it brings the spirit within alive and rescues, even for a moment, the broken heart and hungry soul, then what evil is there within it? Is there not as much goodness and truth in a Christmas Pageant about snowflakes as there is in a sermon on the significance of the virgin birth?
Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more than rushing about trying to buy Christmas peace. What has happened to goodwill towards men?
Go Christmas shopping at Costco on a Sunday afternoon if you don’t believe.
It’s not that I am cynical about Costco or Christmas shopping, but I can be assaulted at home for free. It is hard to hear an angel voice through the chaos and the noise.
Every time I go out shopping, I see people moving about like lions on a feeding frenzy. Is life so rushed and pushed that we can’t even take time to be courteous?
I don’t comprehend people and why we treat each other so badly. I just don’t get how the world turned out this way and why we didn’t see it coming. I can only imagine what is to come, and I pray those gone do not have to give witness from a distance.
God is watching us.
God is part of the problem.
When we picture God rolling dice and moving armies rather than bringing hope and purpose to those for whom He has much love, why shouldn't we do the same? Humanity tends to pay so much attention to the commentary about God rather than the messages from God. Let us be concerned with Peace on earth not earth in pieces.
There is no division in forgiveness. There is no assignment of wings.
We are a soul not a solider. Salvation is a gift, not a commendation.
The greatest gifts aren't wrapped in paper.
You can wish with all your might that things be different but it all begins with you.
We should emulate not formulate.
Those things we pray for can be answered with our own actions.
The Spirit of Christmas reminds us that we need to be saved, from ourselves.
Man is more comfortable in the killing and the making of war than in the coming together and sharing towards harmony and goodwill. If the Christian, Muslim and the Jew actually lived by the words of their Holy books rather than striking to protect the ways of their belief structure, making peace would not be so much harder than making war.
Change might not come in time for you and for me but someday may our fervent wish be that every cup overflows with blessings rich and eternal.
May every path lead to peace.
Still, there is another side to Christmas.
A dark side, heralded by demons rather than angels.
For many people, this time of year does not bring good cheer nor does it bear tidings of comfort and joy. For many, it is the hardest, not the most wonderful, time of the year; so many lonely and broken hearted people, haunted by ghosts of this season.
So many pleading for just one last Christmas.
When Christmas present holds no hope for the future, or escape from the past, we build walls around us to keep out the sadness. In so doing be keep out the joy.
We think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes strength comes through letting go.
We must realize what we have and what may be.
We must recognize that sooner than later we will all be wishing for one more time, one minute more and one last Christmas.
We will wish upon a star to guide us through.
If we have lost our way on a dark and lonely night what will ease the mind? Do you seek direction on an unfamiliar road or do you look for and follow what will lead you to safety? There is no safety when you get lost in the desert at night.
When the winds howl and the sands blow, even the littlest Sheppard knows to never sleep on the desert floor or you may drown in the sands.
Keep moving and hope will bring you home to moments from Christmases past and to revel in the emotional response. Memory is a treasure bestowed on only you. No one else can see from your vision nor can another open their heart for the pieces of the past which fit only in you and you alone.
Memory takes us back to a place so we may see things at a distance. That’s what memory is for. It is for the purpose of reminding, of re-sensing those things which should be remembered. Sometimes Christmas without means more within.
We hold onto good memories because of what they offer us. They allow us to trip back and relive, in a sense, the most important and the most real parts of who we are. Christmas is an individual event. Things seem fresher when they stand alone.
Christmas comes only once a year so it is clearer when we look back on it.
Although many things can change some things never will.
Hold to these things and search no more.
Time never changes the memories and faces of loved ones who give all that we come from and all that we live for and all that we're going to be; in the magic of the season there’s a reason to be happy.

'God is watching us. God is watching us.
God is watching us from a distance … '

The night before the night before Christmas holds no meaning.
It really is just two more until the big day.
The pause we make on this day often comes from exhaustion and shows the Christmas trap has become to much. We wonder if this is really the Christmas that was meant.
It's not the outer things like sleigh bells and pretty papers that help build these fences.
The pain Christmas brings can be tough on the senses.
All of our tomorrows come and gone like evening sunlight and stars before the dawn. As years rush like waves upon the sand they weave this weary pathway to our door.
Done give up or lose faith, hope is for all who live in the season.
If we give in to the notion felt deep in the soul this commotion of Christmas will help make us whole. When no visions of sugar plums dance in our head we must get up from the bed and search for the Reason.
Sometimes we forget when the day is not past, by remembering we can make love last.
You don't have to be an angel to sing harmony.
You don't have to be a child to know the mystery.
The heart of Christmas is in you and me.
What if, for me, this is all just commentary, expressions for easier thinking by mankind? What if these tales of old are merely that, tales? Would it matter that much?
Would Christmas mean less to a child if Santa Claus was dead?
Fact is irrelevant as we try to coalesce logic and reason with a gift sent by God for all mankind. Peace is for everyone.
Sending cards that talk of peace and love and cheer is what we need if we'd only believe it would be. There wouldn't be Christmas without the Christ.
His promise of Hope sounds redemption and reunion so loud that the world takes notice. Without Jesus, there would be no Christmas at all.
Without Him food for the soul would be missing.
Praise to God, for He sent his Son.
God is in us and for us and He is with us.
Maybe this Christmas will bring something more as worry is wasteful and useless in times like these. The holiday season is the only time of the year that men and women seem by one consent to open their shut up hearts freely. To think of people as if they were fellow passengers. It’s in every one of us to fly.
Why can't it remain all through the year? Everyday the same.
What good serves the man who puts words before care and judgment before compassion?
It is our responsibility to love one another, as best we can, no matter what.
Who among us will cast the first pine comb?
When the dawn reveals scenes from a Christmas Eve let us listen to the revelation.
What good is chance not taken? What good is life not living?
What good is love not given?
On Christmas Day may it begin with me and you and all travellers of men.
Let it lead us to His face and guide us to His grace and find a place where we are all safe.
You just put one foot in front of the other.
No need to hurry. A good way to start is to stand.
Just put one foot in front of the other and soon you’ll be walking out the door.

'From a distance you look like my friend even though we are at war
From a distance I just cannot comprehend what all this fighting is for
From a distance there is harmony and it echoes through the land
It's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves
This is the song of every man.'
-from 'Some People's Lives'
From a Distance, Bette Midler / 1990
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXOgn8-aEaA



Photo


http://www.conradaskland.com/blog/2006/12/merry-christmas/