Keeping Christmas

OK, after I lamented about how I have had nothing to offer this Advent, I visited Margaret's blog and found this gem. So, I do have something beautiful to offer...except I "borrowed" it, so it's not really mine, but still, it's good. Enjoy.

From “Keeping Christmas” by Henry Van Dyke:

“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 your fellow-men are just as real as you are, and 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 your 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 these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.”